Should have seen this coming. First Auburn ditches the spread offense it hired Tony Franklin to run, then Auburn loses to Vanderbilt … whilst starting with traditional two-tight end football, then going to the spread. Tuesday, Coach Tommy Tuberville said only a “major disaster” would cause a mid-season change of philosophy on offense. Wednesday, the Tigers’ offensive coordinator was fired.

Tuberville said he and Franklin did not have “personal conflicts.”

Not sure about that, but this is just a bizarre story and one that really makes you think about Auburn football.

Yet we’re here to think about WVU football and how this firing affects the once ballyhooed Oct. 23 home game against the Tigers. First, I won’t be able to run the story about Franklin’s relationship with Noel Devine.

“Noel, this is Coach Tony Franklin, offensive coordinator at Troy University. Give me a call when you get a chance. Give me a call because I got a plan for you. You’re gonna be the first person ever to win a Heisman Trophy as a sophomore. You’re gonna shock the world. You’re going to gain about 2,000 yards your freshman year. You might have everybody in the world on your case, but you’re gonna help us beat Florida and Oklahoma State, Georgia and L.S.U. your freshman year. Give us a call if that excites you. If not, then good luck to you, man, at U.S.C. or Miami or wherever you go. Just don’t forget, when you’re sitting on the bench your freshman year, you could be here getting about 2,000 yards. Take care.”

Bummer. 

As for the game itself? Well, when the schedule came out the first thing I noticed was the 12 days between WVU-Syracuse and WVU-Auburn. That advantage is gone now.

As weak as Auburn’s offense is, it’s still good enough to go basic and handle Arkansas’ awful run defense. To that, the defense is more than good enough to handle Arkansas’ offense. The Tigers will keep it very vanilla and use their 12 days to figure out what they’ll do. Nothing short of a spy at an Auburn practice will give WVU a clear clue as to what the Tigers are going to do — and WVU would never, ever do such a thing.

You can say it’s good for WVU because the Tigers are in turmoil. You can say it’s bad for WVU because the Tigers are away from what’s made them so poor. The big issue here is WVU really doesn’t know what to expect.

Sure, you can go back to old tapes and see what the Tigers did. Trouble is, the talent is different from year to year and what Auburn did with Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown and Jason Campbell years ago doesn’t really help right now. It gives you an idea, but not all the answers because the same things can’t be done with different players. Really, why did Auburn change in the first place? 

Perhaps Doc Holliday can call in a few favors from his buddies at Florida and in the SEC and get some scouting reports, some tips, maybe even some footage. Even that can only go so far, though, because it’s apparent Tuberville wanted things to change. The weirdest part is it sure looks like the Tigers will continue to do some spread stuff, but also rely more on traditional sets and plays.

Best guess? Tigers use the spread situationally. Best bet? WVU opens up in a base defense and adjusts throughout the first half. Best story? Auburn goes all spread all the time.