Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
With this being the week of the Super Bowl, I really wasn’t thinking very much about college football.
I do not pay much attention to college football’s annual recruiting stats. Everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line already knows that Alabama head football coach Nick Saban will come ashore every year with a boat full of big fish. Alas, even Coach Saban doesn’t really knows how these highly touted so-called 5-star high school football players will perform once they enter a college football program.
Auburn University is that “other” state university in the state of Alabama.
Located about 30 miles west of the Georgia state line on I-85, the city of Auburn also features a lovely historic downtown district. The city’s population has exploded from 33,000 in 1990 to over 76,000 in 2020. The city of Auburn must be doing something right.
While the athletic supporters of Auburn University should be beaming with pride for the recent #1 ranking for the men’s basketball team (first time in school history), Auburn has been making the news for another reason this week.
Auburn’s football coach Bryan Harsin was hired one year ago after posting several 10-win seasons as the head coach for Boise State. He replaced long-time (by Auburn standards) coach Gus Malzahn who was fired after seven years on the job after posting a 66% winning record for the Tigers.
Prior to Malzahn, Auburn’s list of fired football coaches included Gene Chizik (3 years but included a national championship in 2010), Tommy Tuberville (9 years and now a member of the United States Senate), Terry Bowden (5 years), and Pat Dye (11 years).
Upon further review, I learned that each of those former Auburn football coaches had won the Associated Press SEC Coach of the Year honors at some point while at the school.
At least the new football coach, Bryan Harsin, doesn’t have that stigma just yet.
So, what IS the problem with Auburn Coach Bryan Harsin?
Once the 2021 season ended, all I remembered about Auburn’s football program was that they had posted a 6-6 in the regular season and took arch-rival Alabama into double overtime before losing 24-22. The team’s bowl loss to a solid University of Houston team in the Birmingham Bowl seems to have irked the Auburn faithful, too.
They will gladly recite that the Tigers lost their last five football games of the season. When I looked at those losses, they came by 17 (at Texas A&M), 9 (at Mississippi State), 4 (at South Carolina), 2 (double-overtime home loss to Alabama) and 5 (vs. Univ. of Houston in the bowl game). That equates to an average of 7.4 points per game in those five losses. The team had a disappointing finish, but nobody seriously expected Auburn to be a national contender this season, did they?
Auburn had just fired their long-term coach Gus “We can’t wait to get rid of” Malzahn. That normally means the new coach (Harsin) should be given a few years to build his coaching staff and find recruits best suited to his style of football before passing final judgment.
Apparently not at “Anxious Auburn”.
After the 2021 football season ended, the Auburn football faithful has felt uneasy following some recent drama within the program. These jittery fans now believe that next season’s Auburn football season is all but lost. Some think their football team will be lucky to defeat one of the three “payday” teams on the team’s 2022 home schedule (Mercer, San Jose State, and Western Kentucky). Heaven forbid, the SEC schedule could spell doom for their team.
Maybe or maybe not. We won’t know until the games are played this fall.
A 6-6 regular season football record may be disappointing to many Auburn football fans, but the record itself doesn’t warrant all the whining which occurred the past week. Let’s examine some of the stress-inducing issues:
Issue 1: After the season ended, there have been a number of prominent football players who have left the program via the NCAA’s new revolving door called the transfer portal.
News flash to Auburn football fans – The players who have recently abandoned the program apparently weren’t good enough to save the job of your previous coach (Gus Malzahn), either. Maybe it’s time to look into the mirror and realize that the talent and coaching at Auburn may have been overestimated when compared to a few other SEC schools (especially that big happy elephant in Tuscaloosa).
Auburn quarterback Bo Nix was the first of the big name defectors as he transfers to Oregon for his final year. Though he was heralded as one of the nation’s best high school quarterback recruits (winning the state of Alabama’s “Mr. Football” award during his senior year), the son of former Auburn QB Patrick Nix has performed inconsistently during his three seasons as the starting quarterback at Auburn.
Bo Nix showed flashes of brilliance during his years at Auburn. Just ask LSU fans who witnessed Auburn’s dramatic last second win over the Bayou Bengals in Baton Rouge last season (ouch!).
However, Nix could go MIA in other games, too. His penchant for wildly scrambling as if playing in a schoolyard pick-up game and a tendency to throw ill-advised passes may have cost Auburn several wins over his career.
Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin knows quite a bit about quarterbacks as he played the position at Boise State while the Broncos were rising to national prominence. Before becoming a head coach, Harsin was also a highly regarded offensive coach.
The relatively new NCAA transfer portal (which, in effect, allows players to switch schools every season) has produced more defections from Auburn than most fans expected.
Again, I ask, “How to you know already know that the 18 players (at last count) leaving Auburn after last season are any better players than those who may transfer into the program for next year?”
Issue 2: A few key Auburn coaches have left the program recently.
The “Yeah, but” Auburn faithful also point to the defection of defensive coordinator Derek Mason. He left Auburn after just one season and reportedly took a $400,000 pay cut to take a similar job at Oklahoma State. Let’s not forget that Derek Mason had been fired just one year earlier as the head coach at perennial SEC doormat Vanderbilt.
Does anyone really think that Mason’s departure spells imminent doom for Auburn next season? Another of current head coach Bryan Harsin’s assistant coaches (Jeff Schmedding – who also came from Boise State) was promoted to become the team’s new D-coordinator. Time will tell.
Then there is the departure of Auburn’s offensive coordinator, Mike Bobo. He was fired by Harsin after the 2021 regular season ended. The Auburn offense under Mike Bobo (a former quarterback for the University of Georgia) was just not very impressive.
However, Harsin’s pick to replace him (Austin Davis – former assistant coach for the Seattle Seahawks) only lasted about a month at the school before he abruptly left in January, 2022 for “personal reasons”.
The anxiety kettle at Auburn was now starting to heat-up.
Issue 3: Auburn’s high school recruiting haul was considered disappointing
Recently, the annual high school signing day arrived with a big thud for many Auburn fans. According to one source, Auburn signed just five players ranked among the top 300 prospects nationally. That’s compared to Alabama signing 14 and Georgia nabbing ten of the top 100 prospects.
A different source ranked Auburn with the #19 overall recruiting class out of the 130 FBS large colleges in 2022. Though several SEC schools ranked ahead of Auburn, the Tigers’ incoming class was still ahead of Ole Miss (#24), South Carolina (#26), Mississippi State (#27), and Vanderbilt (#32).
As I’ve said for years, it doesn’t matter how many “stars” which a subjective recruiting outfit assigns to a college player. If the athlete works hard and matures (physically and mentally) while in college, many of the 3 and 4-star high school athletes become starters and some go on to long NFL careers.
Issue 4: The media helped douse gasoline onto this Auburn football “fire”
For over a week, Auburn football coach Bryan Harsin was on vacation while the rumor mill gathered momentum pushing for him to be terminated. The overwhelming amount of self-inflicted anxiety displayed by Auburn’s football fan base received a lot of assistance from an all-too-willing media.
There is a lot of truth to the old saying, “If it bleeds, it leads!”
I listened to one national radio program (known for its in-depth coverage of SEC football) on Wednesday. The show was filled with call after call supporting the firing of Auburn’s new football coach after just one season. Even after the college football season has ended, the shows’ callers are obsessed with football as the primary topic.
Issue 5: In the end, money matters!
Auburn (the school and/or the football boosters) would need to write yet another big exit check of about $18 million to pay-off Bryan Harsin for the remaining years of his contract.
That would come just one year after Auburn had to write a $21 million check to pay the previous football coach, Gus Malzahn, to hit the bricks with several years left on his contract.
For what it’s worth, the school’s current president (who is also being replaced soon) stated late this week that he has completed a review of recent matters involving the current football coach, Bryan Harsin.
Auburn University President Jay Gauge said, “Recently, individuals raised concerns to my administration about the football program. The nature of these concerns compelled a fact-finding review. He added, “My most recent conversations with Coach Harsin have me as convinced as ever in his commitment to our student-athletes’ on- and off-field success and his vision for our program.”
But wait, there’s more!
President Gauge said, “Unfortunately, social media fueled wild speculation, substantial misinformation and unfair attacks on good Auburn people. A feeding frenzy resulted that was beyond anyone’s control. We regret the concern, anger, frustration or hurt that this caused any member of the Auburn family.”
For his part, Bryan Harsin returned from vacation on Wednesday and then attended the SEC Coaches’ meeting in Birmingham Thursday. The media vultures tried to corner the coach for comments, but Harsin cleverly avoided the cameras and microphones before and after the meeting.
On Friday, Coach Harsin released a statement. He said, “This has been one of the hardest weeks of my career, and it had nothing to do with my coaching ability. The personal attacks on me and my family went too far and were without justification. Their resolve through this experience has been incredible but also completely expected.”
Conclusion: All parties involved need a big time-out right now.
Auburn football fans should take a deep breath and allow Coach Bryan Harsin another year to improve on the football field while giving the athletics’ department checkbook a chance to recover.
In the meantime, perhaps the supporters of Auburn athletics might wish to spend a little more time watching their top-ranked men’s basketball team!