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Most Hated...

Hate is such a strong word. It's not a word you want to throw around without cause. Here, deep in the Bible Belt, nothing is more worthy of irreverent hate than a rival football coach, and nobody does it better than the Bama nation! These last two entries will center around a few good men that make the average Bama fan wanna shave his/her mullet!

2 Tommy Tuberville (Auburn) - Tommy has a long history of vexing folks in The South. When the riverboat gambler flaps his gums you better listen, cause there's a good chance he's gonna run some smack!

SEC fans got their first taste of Tuberville when he made his head coaching debut at Ole Miss in 1995. He was a breath of fresh air for a program enduring stiff NCAA sanctions. Tommy kept The Rebels competitive, made strong recruiting inroads, and most importantly, he helped the fans believe that great things could happen in Oxford again.

Though Tommy isn't the biggest Arkansas good-ole-boy who came to power in the 90's, he's just as slick. Tubby said all the right things. He even went as far as to say that he was "A Rebel at Heart".

Awe...How sweet is that?

Rebel fans were buyin' it hook, line and sinker. Who wouldn't believe a guy that said the only way he was leaving Oxford was "in a pine box?"

As you are probably aware, he did leave Oxford, and he's not a corpse. He escaped under the cover of darkness on a private jet headed for the plains of Auburn, AL. Without so much as a goodbye to his players or former fans, he was history.

Like Mrs. Tuberville has surely told him a thousand times, it's not WHAT you did, it's HOW you did it. For a man who could never seem to keep his mouth shut, this time he was silent.

Auburn must have made Tommy an offer he couldn’t refuse, and all that loyalty talk went out the window. Apparently he was "a Tiger at heart".

This marks the beginning the anti-Tuberville sentiment at Ole Miss and Alabama. Ole Miss hated him for obvious reasons, but the Bama nation couldn't care less about The Rebel's problem (until Dennis Franchione ripped their hearts out in the same fashion). They hate Tuberville because of his station in life. Auburn could have hired Mother Teresa to coach the football team and Bama fans would find her to be a classless harlet!

Don't get me wrong. Tuberville has earned his reputation. Competitiveness is a double edged sword. It can lead you to great successes, but it can also make you look like a first rate jerk.

The man is humble in victory but blameless in defeat. Tubby will blame his players, his staff, injuries and even ESPN for his team's shortcomings. Never himself. Selling out players after a loss was almost an art form:

"If I wanted to run a high school offense then maybe I'd start Jason Campbell."

No, this was not a comment meant for his staff’s ears only. Tommy said this for all the media to hear at a post game press conference. Not exactly constructive criticism for the quarterback who would eventually save Tommy's rear!

Sadly, Tuberville could only deflect the blame for so long, and late in 2003, after another underwhelming season, it all came to a head. That same private jet was sneaking up to Louisville in the middle of the night to find the next great Auburn Coach.

However, in this electronic age nothing goes unnoticed by college football fans. The attempted coup was thwarted when it was revealed in the media, and Tommy was given an obligatory contract extension.

As is true in any profession, winning cures all ills, and with the hire of Al Borges came job security and a 13-0 season. The Tigers were led by the very quarterback that Tommy hung out to dry two years prior. Jason Campbell ran the complex Borges offense to near perfection, earning the title of The SEC's Offensive Player of the Year and a place in the NFL Draft's first round.

Now Tuberville has tenure! Now all is forgotten in Auburn. Opposing fans never forget. Bama fans are still steaming over Auburn's 4 game winning streak in the Iron bowl, and they live for the day when "normalcy" returns to the state. Ole Miss Fans may not admit it, but the Auburn game is still all about revenge. The rest of the SEC is slowly catching on.

Sadly, The Riverboat Gambler has toned it down in the past couple of seasons; less trick plays and less tasty sound bytes. With the exception of his ESPN hissy fit after the LSU loss, Tuberville is letting his team do the talking on the field.

Could it be that Tuberville, like his favorite Quarterback, has matured?

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