Word is that Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville is out in the wake of a disappointing season and a stunning shutout in the Iron Bowl. This is almost certainly a mistake; in 10 years at Auburn, Tuberville has produced consistently, taken them to a bowl every year since 2000, and posted winning seasons every year but his first and this one. He’s the only Aubur coach to ever beat Alabama six years in a row. His 85-40 (68%) record isn’t better than Bowden (73%, fired in 1998) or Dye (71%, forced out in an rules violation scandal in 1992), but it’s close — and n.b. that neither of those guys left voluntarily, either.

If this is true, it means four of the six teams in the SEC West will have coaches with less than 2 years tenure at kickoff next August: Mississippi State, Arkansas, Auburn, and Ole Miss. (I’d make a joke about Saban scaring them all off, but when you factor in Nutt’s move from Arkansas to Ole Miss it’s really only 3 who shuffled out of the SEC — and there’s at least some chance Tuberville might go to Starkville.)

MSU isn’t going to do better without Croom. I find it hard to believe Auburn will do better without Tuberville. Nutt might do a little better at Ole Miss than he did at Arkansas, but even that would be inconsistent. Longtime Heathen Third-Party Contract Oil insists that Petrino’s Louisville roots mean Arkansas will become an offensive power in a couple years, but even if that’s true it still means lots of rebuilding in the SEC West, which is bad for everybody because of perceptions of weakness in strength of schedule.

(Sorry, Lindsey.)