re: Who was the best Auburn football coach of the last 30 years?

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Tuberville really wasn't the greatest of coaches. He was good but it is true that he did benefit from Alabama's NCAA sanctions.

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Honestly, I agree with this. I feel like Tubs is getting overrated itt by conservative fanboys. If this question was asked 3 years ago, the overall consensus on him was a bit different.

He was at Auburn at the right time to make him look better than he really was.

I'll always be grateful for 2004, and some of my best memories of Auburn football are games that he coached. But for every big upset he had, he shite the bed once or twice to teams that he should've beat. Outside of 2004, pretty much every other season was a disappointment. 02,03, 05, and 06 are all seasons full of "could've beens"

It's no secret that Tubs never put much effort into recruiting, and a lot of great players came to him at Auburn almost by default. Bama was under NCAA sanctions and considered a dead program until Saban came in, both MS schools were jokes at the time, Tennessee was cooling off and starting to trend down, Georgia was good but was still equals with Auburn, we didn't really compete much with LSU for recruits at the time. Florida was a juggernaut and got who they wanted, but other than them Tubs didn't have much competition for recruits. The second Saban came into the state, and other SEC teams started stepping up their game, Tubs immediately wilted. He put up zero fight, just completely quit on Auburn without so much as feigning any effort to appear otherwise.
People might not remember but before Bama hired Saban, Auburn was considered heavy favorites for both Julio Jones and Donta Hightower. A good example is Josh Chapman, he was a guy who grew up a Bama fan, but had been committed to Auburn for nearly a year, largely bc Auburn was a competent program and Bama was in constant turmoil. It took one meeting with Saban a few days after he was hired to flip that opinion, and Tubs didn't so much as call to try and save that commitment.

Gus ultimately shot himself in the foot with failures in key areas of recruiting, but he held his own for a long time against a level of competition that Tubs couldn't even stand to.

Bama sanctions had something to do with Tuberville winning 6 in a row over Bama. But I also believe Bama being average gave him plenty of leash to only having one exceptional season. Beating Bama is always an easy security blanket.

Tuberville did not care to recruit especially later in his career. But he also found diamonds in the rough and fielded good teams. Solid all around teams. There was no offense good, defense bad kind of bullshite. We had Will Herring on one side and Carnell on the other.

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Which further proves that Cam is the GOAT SEC QB.

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Considering what he had around him in both personnel and coaching and the fact that he came in and in one year did what he did, really hard to argue this.

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Franchione - Traded head coaching jobs
Shula - Fired

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I seem to remember a guy between these two…

Pat Dye was the best coach Auburin has had in the last 75 years. And if he had hired the right coaches he would not have had near the problems he had at the end.
I think the world of Coach Dye. A true Auburn man. RIP.

Tubberville, it’s not his fault that pre playoff National Championships were determined subjectively. I’m sorry, but going undefeated in the SEC and not winning the NC is bullsheet.

Metro....you seem to have more posts on this thread than even any Auburn fan.

Also...your picture showing Florida's national titles....1984? You're much too young to be on that Colombian crack. A year UF was put on probation for C-H-E-A-T-I-N-G and still wasn't able to finish unbeaten (Florida has NEVER had an unbeaten season... ) finishing 9-1-1.

BYU finished 13-0 and even Washington finished better at 11-1. Nebraska won more games at 10-2.

Too bad Florida had this year stripped by the NCAA and Florida still never officially won 9 games in a season until the 1990s.

I won’t address who or why they played the particular OOC schedule. I’m not sure why it matters if the cumulative teams they played altogether were better than USC.

Who did USC beat in the regular season? A lousy ND and the typically crap PAC 10 schedule?

2004 UGA was not spectacular but they were better than any team USC defeated that season. Hell 2004 UT and LSU may have been.

Auburn was the victim of their 2003 home loss to USC’s carry over into the poll bias of 2004.

You know as well as I do the PAC 10 doesn’t hold a candle to the SEC. I don’t think they beat USC but it’s bull crap they didn’t get to play. All 3 of Florida’s NC came in years where they lost a game and played only FSU OOC.. UGA lost in 2021 too for that matter. Was there any doubt they were the best team. Heck no. But neither had anything to do with the losses from other teams that enabled their second chance. 2011, 12, 15, & 17 AL all had a Loss. 2003 LSU, 2007 LSU had 2. 2002 UGA had a loss and didn’t get a chance and they beat 2 P5 OOC teams.

It’s just disingenuous imo to critique the non conference schedule of a team that played a better overall schedule than either USC or Oklahoma.