REPORTS: Auburn to hire Mississippi State's Athletic Director, John Cohen, to the head job at Auburn

Auburn's poaching the former Bulldogs AD for the same position on the Plains.

© Eric Shelton/Clarion Ledger via Imagn Content Services, LLC

Auburn University appears poised to name John Cohen, 56, as the University's 16th Athletics Director, succeeding Allen Greene, who resigned earlier this fall, multiple sources have reported.

SOURCE: Auburn is close to finalizing a deal to make Miss. State AD John Cohen the Tigers new athletic director.

— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) October 29, 2022

Cohen, originally from Tuscaloosa, AL, played 1st base at Mississippi State from 1987-1990 and was the head baseball coach from 2009-2016. He has spent the last six years as Mississippi State's athletic director after one year as Associate AD. 

Mississippi State baseball is the program that's succeeded the most under the tenure of Cohen, culminating in a 2021 national championship with head coach Chris Lemonis at the helm. During Cohen's 8-year tenure as head coach, 138 MSU baseball players were selected in the Major League Baseball Draft. He was also an assistant for Missouri baseball before head coaching stints at Northwestern State (1998-2001) and Kentucky (2004-2008). He was an assistant at Florida (2002-2003) as well.

Cohen signed a four-year contract extension in July 2022, with a pay raise to $1.1M and a $250,000 buyout. Due to the nature of Mississippi contract law for state employees, the longest contract any university employee can have is for four years, and he (along with Ole Miss's Lane Kiffin and others) signed a contract extension every year since taking the job since 2016. 

Utah State's John Hartwell, long considered the favorite for the job, was scheduled to fly to Auburn this weekend to meet with university officials but those plans changed once the Cohen news began to come out on Twitter. 

There are conflicting reports about Cohen's job security and status in Starkville - multiple outlets have reported that various boosters and administrators were looking to move on from Cohen, but Mississippi State sources have refuted the report. 

Cohen would become the fourth SEC athletic director to move to another job within the department, following Ross Bjork (Ole Miss to Texas A&M), Scott Woodward (Texas A&M to LSU) and Scott Stricklin (Mississippi State to Florida). 

Auburn plays Mississippi State in Starkville on Saturday, November 5th. 

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