Big rebound for Auburn, Tuberville

NEW ORLEANS — As a prep coach, Tommy Tuberville spent one summer tending to the field at Hermitage High School, mowing and watering it each day so it would be perfect for the season opener, his first as a head coach.

But a few days before practice started, a mower leaked gasoline in the middle of the field, burning a 15-foot hole in that beautiful grass.

"When your opening game is in three weeks, that's pressure," Tuberville said.

He knows differently now. A year ago, the Auburn coach was trying to hold onto his team and his dignity after a cabal of university bigwigs bungled its attempt to get rid of him, a humiliation for everyone involved.

Tuberville and Auburn rebounded better than anyone could have imagined. The No. 3 Tigers are undefeated and will play in the Sugar Bowl on Monday night, while Tuberville earned coach of the year honors and a cushy new contract.

But the wounds from last year's ordeal are still there.

"The one thing I learned a long time ago in life is that you learn a lot more from adversity than you learn from success," Tuberville said. "We felt that if we handled it the right way, if we would be humble about it, accept it and take the high road, that our players would do the same.

"There's really no other way to take it but the high road," he added. "We're in this for the kids, the players . . . For us to make a big scene out of that, I thought at the time — and still do think — it would have been a very difficult situation for everyone involved."

The Tigers began the 2003 season ranked No. 6 and favored to win the SEC. But they couldn't even score a touchdown as they lost their first two games and never recovered. Though it seemed Tuberville's job might be in jeopardy, then-president William Walker and athletic director David Housel never told the coach that.

Two days before the Tigers played rival Alabama, Walker, Housel and two trustees flew to Kentucky on a private jet to see if Louisville coach Bobby Petrino was interested in coaching Auburn. Not only had the group not warned Tuberville, it hadn't asked Louisville's president or athletic director for permission to speak with Petrino, a former Auburn assistant.

When news of the trip broke the following week, it sparked a firestorm of criticism. The governor demanded an apology, and Auburn's alumni association called for the resignations of Walker, Housel and the trustees.