College Football: What's Going On at Auburn and What's Next?

As you may have noticed, the Auburn offense is in complete shambles after an embarrasing loss at Vanderbilt that dropped the Tigers to 4-2 overall, and 2-2 in the SEC.

The biggest reason for the Tigers struggles is the new spread offense that Tony Franklin was brought in to run has been anything but an improvement over last season's 100th ranked offense under Al Borges.

Franklin was brought in to run a fast paced offense that added the ability to score more points and be an upgrade over their predictable offense from the past few seasons, it was also brought in to help recruit more athletes. All it's brought though is confusion and dismal offensive performances that have produced barely 10 points a game in SEC play.

There have been a lot of rumors going around after Auburn's latest loss, rumors about Tony Franklin's job status, fans calling for Tommy Tuberville to be fired, and a fanbase that is completely baffled as to what has happened to what was supposed to be a promising season.

The way I see it, Auburn and Tommy Tuberville have three options in which to try and salvage this season, or just make a decision one way or the other as to what direction this offense will go in 2008.

1. Keep Tony Franklin as offensive coordinator, and commit to the spread completely, regardless of the talent. You will never get better at the spread if you don't commit 100 percent to it. Even if it means losing three more games this season, you sink or swim with the spread and hope that it pays off in the long run.

Of course if Auburn does lose three more games, Tuberville and his staff could be in serious trouble with their job and he might not even make it to next year with this staff if they go 7-5.

2. Keep Tony Franklin as offensive coordinator, but run more two tight end formations and mix it in with the spread to just survive this season and try score enough points to win, but all the time planning on keeping with the spread next year.

Only thing is with this choice, comes the chance that you could lose a recruit or two that was recruited to Auburn to run the spread and this offense this year could become even more confusing to the players than it is now and you could really lose some guys focus on the team.

3. Fire Tony Franklin right now, say the spread was bad idea, and let an offensive coach coordinate the offense the rest of the season going back to running the ball and play action, etc. With this choice, you will no doubt lose some recruits who think you are running the spread.

This choice would basically be a disaster and would be the worst possible choice out there. This choice also won't happen, but it is what SOME Auburn fans would like to see happen at this point.

And that's just a scheme perspective. Once Tuberville makes his choice, he and his staff have to then decide which personnel fit that choice and who should be starting at QB and other positions. Once you decide which direction this offense should go in 2008, you have to re-evaluate your players and make sure that you have the right players on the field. 

So basically Tuberville and his staff have put themselves in the biggest pickle they've been in at Auburn, and they are about to have to earn all that money they are getting paid, because they haven't earned it to this point.