ESPN SEC Blog

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

AP Photo/Todd J. Van Emst

Tony Franklin's arrival at Auburn was an instant hit. After being hired in December, he had nine days to put in his no-huddle, spread offense before the Chick-fil-A Bowl matchup against Clemson last season. Granted, it was just one game, but Auburn produced a season-high 423 yards of total offense in a 23-20 overtime win against Clemson.

Franklin had a little more time in the spring, as Auburn converted in full to his spread attack. He's still not sure who will start at quarterback and concedes that both Kodi Burns and Chris Todd will probably start the season in a two-quarterback system until somebody separates himself.

There was a time when Franklin, whose offenses put up all kinds of numbers at Troy, thought he would never get another chance to coach in the SEC. And for that matter, he thought he might be blackballed from college football altogether after being accused of supplying the NCAA information that brought down Hal Mumme at Kentucky and eventually led to probation for the Wildcats.

After Franklin resigned in 2000 as the Wildcats' offensive coordinator, he wrote a book to clear his name and also sued Mumme and Kentucky.

To make a living, he formed a consulting business to get high schools across the country acclimated to his spread offense. He was out of coaching for three years until Troy's Larry Blakeney reached out to him in 2006.

Here's the first of a two-part Q&A with Franklin, who contends to this day that a concerted effort was made by some to keep him out of coaching.

Did others in the coaching profession refer to you as a rat and treat you as such?

Tony Franklin: That was definitely the tag on me, that I ratted out Mumme. It was a very calculated thing [to keep him out of college coaching] that was done and done extremely well. Eventually, it was all proven to be incorrect through court documents and a letter released by the university. Everything I was blamed for was proven to be not true, but it didn't make any difference.

Why write the book?

TF: The reason for the book was really about survival. I wrote it to survive. Kentucky was my home and my state. I didn't mind being blamed for things I was responsible for. But if I was going to be made out to be a pariah, I wanted to make sure it was based on what really did happen. The book's full of details of what did happen. A lot of the newspaper articles spread things that didn't happen. At that time, it was still in the minds of people. They all have that wonderment. Coaches are somewhat like the mafia. You've got your club, and they don't want a member in that club who's broken a code. It was my way of getting out what really happened and what didn't happen.

How has that whole experience shaped you as a coach?

TF: It's a life experience I certainly wouldn't wish on anybody. I learned a lot from it and grew from it. It forced me to do things such as creating my business. It made me a better coach, working with high school teams across the country.

Were there times you thought you'd never get another chance?

TF: Had it not been for Larry Blakeney giving me that opportunity, I don't think I would have gotten another chance. Larry was the only coach over that period of time willing to give me an opportunity. Without him, I would have never gotten back into the college game. I had come to grips with that and was OK with it. But he gave me a chance. We had success, and I'm thankful that somebody like Tommy [Tuberville] noticed. I'm glad he thinks we can do the same thing here.

Because your offensive system is so readily available on the Internet and by purchasing your manual, will that give coaches you go against an advantage?

TF: I would say everybody we play will have it (the book and system). But that's more of an advantage to me that they have it than not have it because every year there are dramatic changes and adjustments. There's so much information we give to high school clients that if you tried to defend it all, you'd go crazy. So, yes, I'd say several of the teams we're going to play this season have already acquired that stuff.

Most coaches would shudder at the thought of somebody they're going to play having a copy of their entire offensive system. Why is that not much of a concern for you?

TF: The paranoia among coaches is amazing. Everybody runs similar routes and does similar stuff. Everybody has their own gimmicks and how they do things. The bottom line is that nothing is really new in football. We all copy each other and ask questions and watch film and try to figure it out. If it works for us, we run it somewhere along the way and act like we invented it.

When you look at the current head coaching lineup in the SEC, is there any such thing as an average coach in the group?

TF: I saw recently where some reporter rated Rich Brooks one of the bottom two coaches in the SEC, which is an absolute joke when you look at what he's done at Kentucky. I've been at Kentucky and know how tough it is to do what he's done there. He beat the national champs last year and has led that program to two straight bowl wins. So I don't know how you rank the coaches in this league. I'm glad I don't have to. I do believe it would be interesting to flip some guys to other schools in our conference and see how it ends up. I promise you that if you flipped Bobby Johnson and sent him somewhere like Florida that he'd be contending for a national championship every year just like Urban Meyer.

Check back a little later today, and I'll have my second part of the Q&A with Franklin, which will focus more on Auburn and what fans can expect from the Tigers on offense in 2008.