COMMENTARY: Auburn deserves better than Bryan Harsin, but you can't afford to miss on this one

Auburn's looking for a head football coach, and it needs to nail this hire.

Author:
Lindsay Crosby
Publish date:
Nov 2, 2022 10:00 AM EDT

In this story:

Monday morning, Bryan Harsin was fired after going 9-12 at Auburn. And yet somehow, he has his defenders.

Pete Thamel of ESPN put out a tweet talking up Harsin's job prospects and coaching acumen like we didn't watch him almost lose to Georgia State last year, or give up 40 unanswered points to Mississippi State last year, or get blown out of his own stadium by Penn State this season.

Cole Cubelic, former Auburn offensive lineman and current ESPN/SEC Network analyst, tweeted the following statement on behalf of Bryan Harsin:

Even after getting fired, Bryan Harsin's blaming everyone else.

Not his recruiting strategy, which was (apparently) just don't do it.

Not his playcalling, which lost us the Iron Bowl.

Not his roster management, which is going to leave us with five scholarship offensive linemen after the 2022 season and ran off players that WANT to be here but aren't getting playtime. He even ran off Bo Nix, son of an Auburn quarterback who literally grew up wanting nothing more than to be an Auburn Tiger. (Yes, the same Bo Nix that is genuinely a dark horse for the Heisman this year while quarterbacking Oregon)

Not his staff management, which caused SEC veteran defensive coordinator (and head coach) Derek Mason to take a $400,000 pay cut just to not have to work for him and has resulted in Auburn having THREE offensive coordinators in the 20 months Harsin was the head coach.

Even in Harsin's final statement, he takes shots at Auburn: "with complete alignment, the possibilities are endless."

Know what gives us endless possibilities? A coach that shows up and does the job.

Goes out and recruits.

Makes halftime adjustments.

Manages the roster and transfer portal.

Auburn believes in work, hard work. Bryan Harsin didn't.

And now we've got to figure out what to do next.

This roster is about to be decimated. 32 scholarship players have transferred away from Bryan Harsin, and five more have already declared the intention midseason. Over half of HIS 2021 recruiting class (10 of 18) are already gone. His master strategy for fixing the offensive line was "bring all the seniors back for one more ride" and apparently we'd just...figure out the rest later? Auburn's hovering at 50% in the Blue Chip Ratio (counting transfers) and the 2023 recruiting class is 55th nationally, dead last in the SEC.

Bryan Harsin, by every conceivable measure, is the worst football coach in Auburn football history.

Auburn fans deserve better.

We deserve a coach that believes in hard work. We deserve a coach that can teach and develop our athletes to become better football players and better people. We deserve a coach that believes in honesty, and truthfulness, and wants to earn the respect of his players, his staff, and the fanbase.

I don't know if that's going to be Lane Kiffin, or Deion Sanders, or someone else off the massive list of candidates - Auburn's a desirable job, despite the "considerable challenges and outside noise".

They've got the work cut out for them.

But we'll be behind them. The stands still fill up in Jordan-Hare. The crowd is still loud. Love Auburn, and it will love you back.

The last guy never tried to.

And we deserve better.