Outgoing Auburn president Jay Gogue addressed the speculation surrounding Auburn’s football program Auburn’s Board of Trustees meeting Friday morning in Montgomery.
Pressure has mounted regarding the status of head coach Bryan Harsin, who just wrapped up his first season leading the program but has come under fire during what has been a tumultuous offseason on the Plains. Harsin signed a six-year deal worth an average of $5.25 million annually when he was tabbed as head coach on Dec. 22, 2020, but questions have arisen as to whether the 45-year-old will see Year 2 with the program.
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“There have been a lot of rumors and speculation about our football program,” Gogue said toward the end of the board meeting on AUM’s campus. “I just want you to know we’re involved in trying to separate fact from fiction. We’ll keep you posted and make the appropriate decision at the right time.”
Harsin went 6-7 in his first season on the Plains, as Auburn experienced its first losing season since 2012. Following a 6-2 start to the year, which included back-to-back wins against ranked teams to end October, Auburn finished the year on a five-game backslide. The Tigers blew double-digit leads in three of those games, including a 28-3 advantage in a collapse against Mississippi State and a 10-point lead in an eventual quadruple-overtime loss to Alabama in the Iron Bowl.
Since the season ended, 18 players have transferred out of the program, the coaching staff have experienced a surprising amount of turnover, and Auburn failed to build off the momentum of the early signing period, signing zero players during National Signing Day earlier this week. One of those players, defensive tackle Lee Hunter—a former four-star prospect from Mobile and a top-100 recruit in the 2021 class—spoke out about Harsin on Instagram on Friday morning. In a post on his page, Hunter claimed Harsin treated players “like dogs” and that while he had a winner’s mindset, he has “a terrible mindset as a person.”
Former safety Smoke Monday backed up Hunter’s claims in a post of his own, saying Harsin “truly don’t understand kids that come from nothing, kids that come from the hood.” Other players, like former team captain Chandler Wooten and edge defender Derick Hall both took to Twitter to defend Harsin.
For his part, Harsin defended his character during an interview late Thursday night with ESPN, saying “any attack on my character is bullshit.” During that interview, Harsin—who is currently on vacation—dug in and asserted his intent to remain Auburn’s head coach for the long haul.
“This is where I want to be,” Harsin told ESPN. “This is what I want to do. That’s why I came here. I didn’t come here to fail. We’ve got to build something, and right now I feel like when you hear some of these things, that there’s a lot of things building against me. Certainly, I’m the right man for the job. There’s no doubt about it. No one is going to have a better plan than I do, but we’ve got to change some things.
“This place is not going to be a championship program until we change some things. You’ve got to let the head coach be the head coach and support him.”
Whether Harsin gets that opportunity remains to be seen, though a resolution to the situation within the football program is expected to come soon.
“We’re trying to sort through what’s honest, what’s truth, what’s just rumor and trying to move quickly, make a decision as quickly as we can as far as any actions that we need to take,” Gogue said. “We’re involved, so we’ll follow through.”
Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.
