Auburn Says No Noles On Football Schedule

Housel

"We will catch a lot of heat and criticism in the next few weeks, some of it fair, some of it unfair, but after that we can get on with our football program. This was an institutional decision, not just an athletic decision.

"This was an institutional decision, not just an athletic decision."

"If we played the game as scheduled, the controversy surrounding the game and the turmoil of last season would be rehashed again and again over the next eight months. The controversy would become bigger than the game, and that would be unfair to the players and coaches on both sides. It's time to close that chapter of the book and move on."

Auburn has not announced a replacement game. It is expected to add a Division I-AA opponent as a seventh home game. That would mean even with paying the $500,000 penalty for dropping the game, Auburn would actually be making money by not playing FSU because another home game would be worth three to four times that much revenue. An announcement on the new opponent could come as early as next week.

"ESPN is aware of and is understanding of our situation. ESPN has been working since November to help us find a solution that was mutually agreeable to all concerned, but it didn't work out."

The two teams have played 18 times with the first meeting in 1954 and the last one in 1990. Auburn leads the series 13-4-1. Auburn and the Seminoles were also scheduled to meet at Jordan-Hare Stadium in AU's fourth game of the 2000 season, but the odds of that meeting taking place are virtually nil, an athletic department official told Inside the Auburn Tigers.

Housel says that Auburn is still open to playing FSU and has offered to reschedule the series several years down the road. "We would like to keep the contract intact, just move it back a few years so that the personal controversies can die down a bit, but that will be Florida State's call," Housel says. "This not about Florida State. It is about the turmoil and controversy that would surround this year's game, and this year's game only."

New Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville is obviously concerned about the difficulty of the 1999 schedule that included the Seminoles and the other team that played in the national championship game at the Fiesta Bowl, the Tennessee Volunteers, who Auburn must face in Knoxville. Despite winning the SEC and national championships, Tennessee had a close call with Auburn in a game that the Tigers dominated statistically but lost due to turnovers and other mistakes.

Auburn's home schedule also includes non-conference games with Idaho and Central Florida plus SEC games against Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Florida and Alabama. In addition to Tennessee, league road tests will come at LSU, Arkansas and Georgia.

"David Housel and myself sat down about a month ago and visited about our schedule," Tuberville says. "The thing we want to do is keep all of our options open. We are playing everybody else so it doesn't make any difference who we play...we're playing everybody but the 49ers so Florida State doesn't bother me. The thing that I don't want to do is rehash what has happened the last three months in the month of August. We are going to have a tough enough time as it is. That is what I relayed to David. David looked at all the options."

Tuberville took over as head coach in December, replacing interim head coach Bill Oliver, who replaced Terry Bowden in November. Bowden approved the original match-up that was to be an historic first ever Division I college football game pitting father vs. son. FSU head coach Bobby Bowden originally said he wanted to cancel the game after his son was pressured out at Auburn, however, he has since had a change of heart after learning that the Auburn game would help FSU's ticket sales, which have not been as good as would be expected considering the program's success this decade.

The historic father vs. son game will be played later in the 1999 season when the Seminoles face Clemson, which is coached by Tommy Bowden, Terry's older brother. In December, Tommy Bowden was hired away from Tulane, where he surprised the college football world by immediately turning around one of the weakest Division I college programs in the country during his two seasons there after leaving Auburn, where he was receivers coach and offensive coordinator. Tulane was undefeated in 1998.

Explaining why he had concerns about opening with FSU, Tuberville says, "I would just hate to rehash the problems we have had the last couple of months. I don't think the players deserve it and I don't think Auburn University deserves it." Tuberville came to Auburn from Ole Miss. The Tigers will play the Rebels Sept. 25th in Auburn.