Tommy Tuberville
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Auburn Head Coach Tommy H. Tuberville | ||
Date of birth | September 18, 1954 | |
---|---|---|
Place of birth | Camden, Arkansas | |
Sport | Football | |
College | Auburn University | |
Title | Head coach | |
Record with Team | 69-29 | |
Overall Record | 94-49 | |
Awards | 2004 Coach of the Year | |
Championships won |
2004 SEC Championship | |
Coaching Stats | College Football DataWarehouse | |
School as a player | ||
1972-1976 | Southern Arkansas University | |
Position | Free safety | |
Schools as a coach | ||
1999-present 1995-1998 |
Auburn University University of Mississippi |
Thomas Hawley Tuberville, (born September 18, 1954) is an American college football coach and current head coach of the Auburn Tigers football team.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
A native of Camden, Arkansas, Tommy "The Riverboat Gambler" Tuberville played football in high school and lettered as free safety at Southern Arkansas University where he played from 1972-1976. Before making his way into coaching, Coach Tuberville was the owner and operator of a catfish restaurant. Tuberville is married to the former Suzanne Fette and has two sons, Thomas Tucker and Troy Allen.
[edit] Coaching History
Tuberville was an assistant coach at Arkansas State University, the University of Miami, and Texas A&M University prior to being named to his first collegiate head coaching job at the University of Mississippi. In a somewhat controversial move, he left Ole Miss after the 1998 season to take the head job at SEC western division rival Auburn. At one point, Tuberville told an Ole Miss alumni group that the only way he would leave Oxford was "in a pine box." Two days later, Coach Tuberville accepted the job as head coach of the Auburn Tigers. The Rebel faithful were furious, and to this day Ole Miss fans look at the annual encounter with Auburn as a much more important game than has historically been the case. Unfortunately for the Rebels, however, they only have a 2-6 record against Auburn under Coach Tuberville.
From 1999 to 2002, Tuberville's Tigers enjoyed moderate success. Although Auburn had a losing season in 1999, they broke out with tailback Rudi Johnson in 2000 to win the SEC West. The next two years would see the Tigers have solid success on the playing field, including a win over #1 ranked Florida in 2001 and a strong finish to the 2002 season left many predicting that Auburn was a national championship contender for the upcoming 2003 season. However, the season quickly deviated, as Auburn lost it's first two games of the season against USC and Georgia Tech. This struggle could likely have been due to Tuberville's decision to promote offensive line coach Hugh Nall to offense coordinator in place of the departed Bobby Petrino, who left to become the head coach at Louisville. The Tigers offense under Nall, who had never held a coordinator's position before in his career, struggled to produce against the better defenses it faced, despite the presence of three future first-round NFL draft picks at the quarterback and running backs positions. Many followers of the Tigers felt this was due to Nall's oversimplified, vanilla offensive schemes - a position bolstered by the Tigers remarkable turnaround a year later with the same players.
Auburn rebounded in a huge way, following Tuberville's near firing, with an unbeaten 2004 regular season and an SEC title. Coach Tuberville posted the first 10+ win season of his then 10 year career and was named the AP Coach of the Year. The Tigers went on to win the Sugar Bowl after the regular season to complete a perfect 13-0 season after which Tuberville was awarded Coach of the Year awards from the American Football Coaches Association, the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association and the Walter Camp Football Foundation.
In 2005, despite losing the entire starting backfield from the unbeaten 2004 team to the first round of the NFL draft, Coach Tuberville led Auburn to a 9-3 record, finishing the regular season with victories over rivals Georgia and Alabama and a berth in the Capital One Bowl where they were defeated by the University of Wisconsin, led by retiring long-time head coach Barry Alvarez.
Under Tuberville, Auburn has a winning record against its three biggest rivals, LSU (5-3), Georgia (5-3), and Alabama (5-2). Tuberville has also established himself as one of the best big game coaches in college football, winning 8 out of 9 games against top 10 opponents since the start of the 2004 season. After losing two of his first three against in-state rival Alabama, Tuberville has won four straight in the series. This marks the first time that either team has accomplished that since 1989, when Auburn again beat Alabama four consecutive times.
Tuberville has been a vocal opponent of the Bowl Championship Series, instead favoring some form of playoff system.
[edit] Attempted Firing
During the 2003 season, Tuberville was the subject of an attempted behind-the-scenes palace coup. Auburn president William F. Walker and athletic director David Housel, with major support from Colonial Bank CEO Bobby Lowder,[1] a prominent Auburn athletics booster and member of the school's board of trustees, decided to remove Tuberville. However, neither Walker nor Housel told the coach that his job was in danger. Two days before Auburn's biggest game of the year, the Iron Bowl against Alabama, Walker, Housel, and two other Auburn trustees flew to Louisville, Kentucky on Lowder's corporate jet[1] and secretly interviewed Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino (who had been Auburn's offensive coordinator the previous season) for the Auburn job. Reports of the meeting quickly leaked to the media. After several denials, Auburn was forced to admit to having met with Petrino, and the reaction from fans and media was so hostile that not only did Auburn decide to keep Tuberville, but Walker was forced to resign as the school's president within two months, and Housel later resigned as well.[2]
[edit] Coaching Record
TEAM | YEAR (Championships and Bowl Games) | WINS | LOSSES |
---|---|---|---|
Ole Miss | 1995 | 6 | 5 |
Ole Miss | 1996 | 5 | 6 |
Ole Miss | 1997 (Motor City Bowl) | 8 | 4 |
Ole Miss | 1998 | 6 | 5 |
Auburn | 1999 | 5 | 6 |
Auburn | 2000 (SEC Western Division) (Florida Citrus Bowl) | 9 | 4 |
Auburn | 2001 (Peach Bowl) | 7 | 5 |
Auburn | 2002 Capital One Bowl | 9 | 4 |
Auburn | 2003 Music City Bowl | 8 | 5 |
Auburn | 2004 (SEC Champion) (Sugar Bowl) | 13 | 0 |
Auburn | 2005 (Capital One Bowl) | 9 | 3 |
Auburn | 2006 | 9 | 2 |
CAREER TOTAL (as of 11/11/06) | 12 years | 94 | 49 |
[edit] References
- Auburn University 2005 Football Media Guide. Retrieved on 2005-12-02.
- ^ a b Fish, Mike (2006-01-13). A Tiger of a trustee. ESPN.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
- ^ Tuberville goes from pink slip to perfection. Associated Press (2004-12-31). Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
[edit] External links
Preceded by: Billy Brewer; Joe Lee Dunn (interim) |
University of Mississippi Head Football Coach 1995–1998 |
Succeeded by: David Cutcliffe |
Preceded by: Terry Bowden; Bill Oliver (interim) |
Auburn University Head Football Coach 1999–present |
Succeeded by: Current |
Preceded by: Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) |
Walter Camp Coach of the Year 2004 |
Succeeded by: Joe Paterno (Penn State) |
Ole Miss Rebels Head Football Coaches |
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Bondurant • Clark • Fairbanks • Hollister • Scarbrough • Lyon • Estes • Shibley • Martin • Harvey • Hammond • Mason • Stauffer • De Tray • Driver • Robbins • Noble • Sullivan • Cowell • Barnard • Hazel • Walker • Mehre • Drew • Vaught • Kinard • Cooper • Sloan • Brewer • Dunn • Tuberville • Cutcliffe • Orgeron |
Auburn Tigers Head Football Coaches |
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Petrie • Balliet • Harvey • Hall • Heisman • Watkins • Kent • Bates • Donahue • Keinholz • Pitts • Morey • Bohler • Floyd • Wynne • Meagher • Voyles • Brown • Jordan • Barfield • Dye • Bowden • Oliver • Tuberville |
Current Head Football Coaches of the Southeastern Conference |
Rich Brooks (Kentucky) | Sylvester Croom (Mississippi State) | Phillip Fulmer (Tennessee) | Bobby Johnson (Vanderbilt) | Urban Meyer (Florida) | Les Miles (LSU) | Houston Nutt (Arkansas) | Ed Orgeron (Ole Miss) | Mark Richt (Georgia) | Mike Shula (Alabama) | Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) | Tommy Tuberville (Auburn) |