Strange doings at Auburn another sign of the times in college football

The spin coming out of Auburn is that Tommy Tuberville fired coordinator Tony Franklin because the new offense was going nowhere. Auburn had been picked as the favorite to win the SEC West but dropped league games to LSU and Vanderbilt after beating Mississippi State 3-2.

Tuberville's explanation doesn't add up since Franklin got a public vote of confidence a few days before. The story I'm getting is Franklin's coaching style was creating serious friction and division among the players and staff, and he had to go. In short, Franklin blew a gasket.

Rich Franklin's offense wasn't on par with Auburn's strong defense. (AP)

I know as a former player that teams can start dividing over several issues, but usually it comes when one side of the ball doesn't believe the other side is holding up its end of the deal. In Auburn's case, the defense is ranked seventh nationally while the offense is 104th in yards per game and 103rd in scoring.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but why Tuberville didn't see this coming or step in when trouble was brewing -- who knows? The painful truth is he's now in a tough spot. He's back to Square 1 in the middle of the season, and he's in a bind because he recruited for the spread offense and knows that's the way to go. Today's kids want to be a part of wide-open offenses.

The real problem here is Alabama's Nick Saban. He came in with a lot of fanfare and a salary to match, and he's delivering. The Tide is No. 2 and could well be playing for the national championship.

Tuberville knows that gives Saban a huge recruiting advantage, even though Tuberville has been head coach for 10 years and has one of college football's best records. Plus, the Tigers have beaten the Tide six consecutive years. Keep in mind that games between Auburn and Alabama are like a never-ending civil war.

We don't know how all this will play out. Football, like life, is always unpredictable. As a former player and now an analyst, I see what's happening at Auburn as more than an interesting story. It's a telltale sign that we're in a new college football era that has made the word "upset" obsolete. Let's take a quick look:

What's down is up and what's up is down, and there's confusion all around. When Oregon State beat USC, the top-rated team had lost three of its past five games to unranked opponents for the first time in 13 years. The emergence of South Florida, Utah, Boise State and Fresno State, among others, shows talent is no longer in the hands of the big dogs.

Back to Auburn: The tipping point was a loss to Vanderbilt, once an also-ran that's now 5-0 and leading the nation in turnover ratio. Perceptions die hard. In the Big 12, Missouri, once a middle-of-the-packer, is national power. So is Kansas. OU, OSU, Texas, and Texas Tech prove that with top-flight quarterbacks, teams are becoming scoring machines. They need to keep pouring it on to stay competitive.

There are no more coaching safe harbors. The last vestiges of coaching longevity are Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno. Phil Fulmer has been at Tennessee for 17 years but is falling on hard times. Compare that to Houston Nutt, whose win-loss record at Arkansas was outstanding. He was let go when a hiring decision turned into a media circus, and he took a few million dollars with him. Rich Rodriquez left for Michigan a year after turning down an offer from Alabama, which has had a parade of coaches, including Dennis Franchione.

At Texas A&M, Franchione couldn't match the record of R.C. Slocum, who was the winningest coach in school history and still got fired. Francione got the ax shortly after the Aggies defeated the University of Texas. Tyrone Willingham was the first African-American to coach a super elite major university team when he was hired by Notre Dame. He produced the best record in years there, but it was not good enough for the rabid Irish nation. Today, Willingham is on the verge of being fired at Washington, proving that it's a short trip from the penthouse to the outhouse.

When it comes to college football, that pretty much says it all.