Auburn's Bad Habit Good News for Hogs

With Tigers in Harsin created turmoil, SEC West power may fall from relevancy

Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

Some habits are just too hard to break, and at Auburn, that habit is holding a blow torch to the seat of whomever is the head football coach, no matter how successful.

Gene Chizik brought high school legend turned Arkansas offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn to the plains and promptly won a national championship. However, 10 months later Tiger fans lit the proverbial coaching seat on fire. 

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A mere 22 months after hoisting the BCS national championship trophy, Auburn set Chizik on the path toward Saturday nights on the SEC Network.

His replacement, Malzahn, led Auburn within seconds of a second national championship in four years, but spent the next seven years dealing with Tiger fans calling for his head despite being the most successful coach in the SEC against Nick Saban.

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Jake Crandall - USA Today Sports

Chizik and Malzahn didn't have skins on the wall, they had living room sized rugs that almost no other SEC coaches could put on display. Yet, the fans couldn't wait to run those men out of town.

That's why when Bryan Harsin got suckered into leaving Boise State for Auburn, followers of SEC football outside of the eastern edge of Alabama laughed and asked each other how many weeks, not years, it would be before Harsin would find himself under the same fiery pressure Malzahn pushed through year after year. 

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The only point of contention was whether he would get the Chizik three, or a Chad Morris two (that's just short of two full seasons).

The short-term projections had to do with two things:

1. The talent wasn't there to accomplish the level of success needed to placate the Auburn faithful.

2. The Tigers have developed a reputation for having one of America's most vendictive fan bases in regard to coaches.

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What no one could have predicted was how self-destructive Harsin would turn out to be. 

His team capped the Tigers' first losing season since 2012 by falling to a Group of 5 school in the Birmingham Bowl, essentially a home loss considering the 100 mile drive.

Just over a month before, in a mid-November showdown, Harsin's star quarterback, Bo Nix, walked off the field in Auburn for the last time. If Tiger fans want to see if Nix will ever live up to his potential, they will have to do a little red eye west coast game TV watching, as he will be wearing whatever color combination Nike can come up with in Oregon this fall.

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That's how Auburn fans will have to watch many of their favorite players and coaches as the line out the door is as crowded as a grocery store in the south the night before a snow day.

Had Harsin not talked star running back Tank Bigsby out of the transfer portal, he probably wouldn't have made it to Christmas. 

Then came changes at both coordinator positions, which is never a good sign for a coach in his first year at a school.

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo is now at Georgia. Defensive coordinator Derek Mason was immediately snatched up by Oklahoma State for the same role. 

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That's not generally the result one sees when the perception is the coordinator was the problem for a team.

Harsin followed that up by hiring former NFL assistant Austin Davis only to have him do a 180 and head back out the door faster than it takes to get the electricity turned on in your new apartment.

Reports are now coming out that Harsin did such a poor job of vetting Davis for the job that he was going to have to fire him for being "unfit" for the job. 

Smoke is now billowing into the Alabama skies, and indications are Harsin will not get to coach his first true recruiting class. 

For Arkansas and the rest of the SEC, the turmoil is great news from a potential win perspective, although no SEC fan probably feels great celebrating the mess unfolding at Auburn. 

Scratch that. The Tide fans are probably having watch parties complete with themed popcorn flavors.

John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

If Auburn's administration does go through with removing Harsin, the Tigers are going to feel it for a few years. 

Outside of Texas and Hawaii, no school has a worse reputation for being an unfriendly environment for prospective coaches than Auburn. 

It would be hard to find someone to take the job under normal circumstances. However, getting a coach to come in and deal with such a short fused fan base without being able to even recruit players for his system is going to take someone living in a true state of desperation. 

That's not even taking into account the additional players who will hit the transfer portal.

It would be career suicide. 

Auburn has good reason to move on at the head coaching spot.

But no matter what decision is made, the Tiger fan base will need to accept that its school is going to be a basketball school for the next couple of years.

There are definitely worse things.

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