Only Coach Tubs knows exactly when it happened, but somewhere in the midst of the up-and-down 2007 football season, he decided that a change in offensive philosophy was in order. Maybe it was when Auburn couldn’t score enough points in early season losses to South Florida and Mississippi State. Maybe it was when Auburn had to rely on defense to win low-scoring SEC contests against Arkansas and Ole Miss. Or maybe it was after the last second loss to LSU or the blowout defeat at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs.

In the end it doesn’t matter when it happened. It only matters that it did in fact happen, as demonstrated by Tubs’ words:

"An old dog doesn't change his tricks very often, but you have to grow with the times."

Enter new Auburn Offense Coordinator Tony Franklin and his high-energy, aggressive Spread offense.

Anyone who followed Auburn’s season last year knows that it took Franklin less than 2 weeks to install the 1.0 version of his offense, which racked up more than 400 yards against Clemson’s top ten defense in the Chick-fil-a Bowl.

In reality, Auburn’s defense was so good, that it’s safe to say that the Tigers had a good shot at beating Clemson with the old offense.

So why did Coach Tubs make the switch?

I can think of five reasons why it happened. And when your team switches to the Spread offense (and eventually, your team will switch too), the reasons for it will be similar.

Reason #1. Points, points, points. This offense can rack up points fast. Scoring seems to come in waves. The Patriots NFL team runs a similar offense, and I noticed this tendency with them as well. You start to wonder if their offense is going to show up, and the next thing you know they’re up by twenty.

Now, please don’t tell me that Auburn is nowhere as good as the Patriots. I know that…I doubt that another Pro offense will be that good any time soon so certainly no college team can compare to them. But, they do run a similar style of offense, and the results can be the same as well.

I remember sitting at Auburn’s Spring game, just about to declare the new offense a failure, and then, in what seemed like moments later, we had scored 3 TDs and a field goal. Can this offense be shut down by a solid defense? Yes. But, that defense better be solid on every single play from scrimmage.

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