By the numbers: Bryan Harsin is one of the worst coaches in Auburn football history

Numbers don't lie. They don't say a lot of positive things about Bryan Harsin.

Author:
Lance Dawe
Publish date:
Nov 1, 2022 9:00 AM EDT

In this story:

The less I know, the better.

Auburn fired head coach Bryan Harsin on Monday afternoon, leading to a colossal explosion on social media - as expected.

The news was met with an array of emotions for Tiger fans, to say the very least. Many expected the firing to come back in the spring following the wild fiasco between Harsin and the university's power brokers... but he found a way to regroup, the team "rallied," and Auburn entered the 2022 season with a simple message that encapsulated Harsin's determined, hard-headed approach to the job: "Just watch."

We watched. As much as some of us would have liked to have turned away, we didn't.

Although the Tigers have historically been one of the winningest programs in all of college football, their recent history, the stories that tell of the teams in the modern era, are not primarily identified through coaches or players of power... although they are still certainly there.

The stories were driven by drama.

Harsin's tenure, as well as the years to follow, were not and likely will not be any different.

But enough of the drama. Let's take a step away from the assumptions, rumors, and emotional turmoil that has surrounded the last 12 months of Auburn football.

Let's take a look at the numbers.

Bryan Harsin's win/loss record

Harsin finished his time with the Tigers 9-12 (a win percentage of 42.8%). No non-interim Auburn coach has had a worse winning percentage since Earl Brown who coached from 1948-1950. Brown went 3-22-4, posting a win percentage of 17.2%. Brown and George Bohler (1928-29) are the only two coaches in Auburn history to coach at least two seasons and have won less than nine games.

These men coached at a time when football was hardly a thing. It's hard to really lump them into this and feel comfortable about it.

Harsin famously finished the 2021 season on a five game losing streak and had the Tigers at 3-5 this season before being let go. That 3-10 record for Auburn is the worst 13-game stretch in program history since the 1928 and 1929 seasons, when Bohler went 3-11 through two years.

Auburn football has quite literally not had this bad of a stretch since the Calvin Coolidge administration. And if interim coach Cadillac Williams can't find a way from preventing losses in the next two games (at Mississippi State, vs Texas A&M)?

It will be the worst 15-game stretch in Auburn history.

Auburn's game-by-game statistical data

Let's stop a focus on that 13-game stretch for a second.

Remember how Auburn failed to score a second half touchdown during Auburn's five-game losing streak to close the 2021 regular season?

Well, Auburn has scored a second-half touchdown in four of their six contests against Power Five competition this year! Hang the banner, right?

Well, the Tigers are 1-4 in those games (and should be 0-5... if Missouri knew how to dive for the pylon properly), and have also done something they didn't really do in 2021: Have a complete breakdown on defense for several games in a row.

Auburn's last three straight opponents have scored at least 40 points against them. That's the first time that's ever happened in program history.

Add in the 41-12 loss to Penn State to make it four total on the season. It's the first time Auburn has allowed four teams to score 40+ points on them in a single season... ever. Previously, three teams had surrendered 40 points 3 times (1948, 2011, 2012). (per JoshDub on Twitter).

But wait - there's more!

Let's not stop at streaks and defensive lapses. How about the defensive yardage?

As of right now, this is where Auburn sits in all four major defensive statistical categories:

- 94th in total defense (407.1 yards)

- 94th in scoring defense (29.9 points)

- 24th in pass defense (192.5 pass yards)

- 127th in rush defense (214.6 rush yards)

Here's the last time Auburn was worse statistically in all of those categories:

Total defense - 2013 (420.7 yards)

Scoring defense - Never

Pass defense - 2021 (245.8 pass yards)

Rush defense - 1977 (214.7 rush yards)

Not so great game-by-game numbers. On top of all of this, the Tigers have significantly struggled to hold onto the football. Auburn has 16 total turnovers lost this season with a turnover margin per game of -1.25.

Since turnover margin began to be documented by Sports Reference in 2000, Auburn has not had a worse turnover margin. 2012 Auburn came the closest at -1.1.

The numbers just keep piling up against Harsin. Auburn is last nationally in fumbles. The passing offense has its worst completion percentage since 1998. They allowed most rushing yards allowed in a single game likely in their entire program history to Ole Miss - and the most they've allowed in a game since 2002 (the record books have a hard time breaking down opponent rushing totals per contest once you get past the modern era).

What defines a blowout?

There seems to be a pretty widespread consensus that a blowout in college football is a win of 17-plus points. For Harsin's sake, let's bump that up to 21-plus.

Harsin had three losses of 21-plus points in a 21-game stretch. That actually hasn't been too uncommon for Auburn coaches over the past two decades or so. Malzahn never had a 21-game stretch that included three 21-point (or more) losses. Neither did Tommy Tuberville.

Since Ralph "Shug" Jordan retired in 1975, two of Auburn's six non-interim coaches have had 21-game stretches that includes more than three 21-point (or more) losses - Gene Chizik and Doug Barfield. Chizik had four such losses in just seven games during the 2012 season.

While the recent struggled of Auburn football have been dire, they have not reached the point that Gene Chizik reached back in 2012. A lot of the numbers and streaks surrounding the Tigers' 2022 failures have almost always "been the worst since 2012." Until this season finishes, it's hard to argue that this is definitively the worst Auburn season of the modern era.

Losing out and catching a couple of blowout losses to Mississippi State and Alabama would certainly put it in contention, however.

Recruiting and the transfer portal

247Sports has only been tracking recruiting rankings online since the 1999 season. Only one time has Auburn had a recruiting class finish outside of the top 25 - that was back in 2004 - and only four times have the Tigers had a class finish outside the top 16. 13 of the 23 classes finished inside the top 10. As of right now, Harsin's 2023 class sits at 55th nationally and dead last in the SEC.

Auburn is having an extremely hard time getting bodies in the room. They only have 10 hard commits for the 2023 class and only signed 18 last cycle (tied for second-worst in the SEC). On top of this, players have been exiting at an alarming rate: 31 scholarship players have transferred out of the program since Harsin was hired in December of 2020. Over half (10 of 18 signees) of the 2021 class has left.

35 JUCO/high school players have joined the program since Harsin was hired.

I understand that the transfer portal has been valuable to the Tigers over the past couple of seasons and will be incredibly important for whoever is next in line to coach... but the portal isn't meant to build programs. It's meant to fill in the gaps.

I wrote about this at AuburnWire last year and nothing has changed. In order for Auburn to begin to close the gap between themselves and their rivals, they need to recruit significantly better.

Ask Michigan State what it's like to build your program out of transfer portal players. It's unsustainable and not ideal for a longterm fix.

Harsin failed to not just get similar levels of talent that the last several coaches have been able to obtain, but he also failed to keep the minimal amount he got to commit to the program. The roster is thin and was getting thinner.

In the end, there are a multitude of numbers, data points, and not-so-fun-facts to point towards Harsin's collapse as a head coach at Auburn. He is one of, if not the worst coach in program history. The bright side is, there's only up from here. Instead of dwelling on the failures of the past, everyone should look to the future.

The less we know, the better.