John Cohen to be named Auburn athletic director after resigning from Mississippi State

Cohen has officially resigned from MSU and is finalizing a deal with Auburn to become the next AD.

Lance Dawe | Oct 31, 2022

John Cohen to be named Auburn athletic director after resigning from Mississippi State /

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John Cohen has informed Mississippi State officials of his resignation from the school, per Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated. According to Dellenger, "The expectation is he will be named the Auburn AD as soon as today in a deal that was being finalized over the weekend."

Former Auburn athletic director Allen Greene stepped down from his position at the end of August. Since then, the university has been conducing a search - a search that lasted exactly two months.

During Auburn football's contest with Arkansas on Saturday, news broke that Auburn was in negotiations with Cohen to become the school's next athletic director after Utah State AD John Hartwell fell out of the running. Once the Cohen news was announced, it was reported almost immediately that Hartwell had canceled his flight to meet with university officials this past weekend.

According to various sources, the idea of hiring John Cohen was met with some pushback - despite this, Auburn University president Christopher Roberts went ahead with the decision to hire him. Rumors have circled about how the hiring was handled, saying some of the major coaches for the Tigers were not consulted about the hire at all.

The timing, length of the search, along with the seemingly sudden rejection of Hartwell (one of Auburn's major targets for a while) would lead some to believe that the situation was not in fact handled as smoothly as it could have been. Nothing new for Auburn University.

Cohen will be the third former Mississippi State athletic director who is now at another SEC school, joining Scott Stricklin (Florida), and Greg Byrne (Alabama).

Contract details have also already been released. Per Ross Dellenger "John Cohen's deal with Auburn is expected to be a five-year contract that pays him about $1.5 million a year, with incentives and assurances that he will operate his own athletic department."

Allen Greene was paid $625K a year for the same position.

Over the last seven years, Cohen has overseen Mississippi State's athletic department. He coached baseball for 13 years prior (Kentucky, 2004-08, Mississippi State, 2009-16).

An announcement of Cohen as the new AD is expected as soon as today.

In an odd twist of scheduling timing, Auburn football (3-5, 1-4 SEC) takes on Mississippi State (5-3, 2-3 SEC) in Starkville this weekend.