Bryan Harsin: Out soon?

There isn’t a football offseason like a football offseason if crazy stuff isn’t happening on The Plains.

Right now, the rumours are abounding that head coach Bryan Harsin may be exiting stage left by the weekend.

That was last weekend….and Auburn’s still No.1 in basketball (though they should have lost at Georgia), and Harsin’s in a job.

The reasons why are unclear. Some people believe that there might have been a dalliance with his assistant Chelsi Crochet. That has been repeatedly denied by his wife and daughter.

Some people believe that it’s because he’s simply awful to work for.

What we do know is this: Right now, Auburn Football is a mess, and it’s all on Bryan Harsin’s head.

I mean, what normal team sees its defensive coordinator suddenly leave his prime SEC job and go to Oklahoma State. Mason earned $1.5 million in the role last year. OSU’s former DC Jim Knowles earned $800,000 when he was there.

We have since learned from reports that Auburn is such a effing dumpster fire right now that Mason is earning $1.1 million as DC in Stillwater. In other words, he’s taking a $400,000 pay cut to be in a cattle/oil town in the middle of damned nowhere.

Added to this was the stunner this week that OC Austin Davis had resigned from his job that he was appointed to on December 18th, stating ‘personal reasons’.

Sorry, but something’s got to be really badly wrong if you’re out the door even before National Signing Day.  I mean, maybe it was personal reasons. Or maybe he saw the writing on the wall very early on and thought: “Damn, I’m getting out as fast as possible.”

It was only on Monday that Auburn’s PR machine actually said something, which was: “The Auburn administration is judiciously collecting information from a variety of perspectives, including our student-athletes, and moving swiftly to understand any issues in accordance with university policies and procedures. Decisions regarding the future of Auburn and its Athletics programs, as always, are made in the interests of our great university and in fairness to all concerns. We do not make institutional decisions based on social media posts or media headlines.”

In other words: “We’re finding ways to backstab this guy so we don’t have to pay buyout money”.

BLOWING THE BOOSTERS

There’s a rule in the SEC, which is this. If your top booster wants you to kiss his ass, you don’t care. You ask if you can lick out his butthole too.

Harsin failed to do that. He refused to kiss babies, show up to drinks parties, and put on a crap-eating smile and say: “Gee sir, thanks so much for what you did for our family.” You never saw him talk about the ‘Auburn family’ (something that Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl has said on repeat). In fact, the biggest situation involving Harsin all year long was his refusal whether to tell anyone his vaccination status (and honestly, we still don’t know), despite it being – quite frankly – his business.

One of the most irritating rumors – or should we say lies – was that Harsin didn’t play in Bo Jackson’s golf tournament in May. If ESPN and other people putting out this untruth had done a speck of research, they would have seen that he teamed up with Charles Barkley, Auburn Jesus and Fred Couples at the Regions Pro-Am on May 6th. I mean, THERE’S A DAMN PHOTO.

But the fact is this: Harsin hasn’t helped himself by not kissing ass. And if there’s one thing SEC boosters like, it’s an ass-kisser.

RECRUITING

Auburn itself is in a damned mess. Alabama, Texas A&M, Georgia and a newly-invigorated LSU are now pulling in good recruiting classes, while the Tigers ranked a dismal 18th in the country, and 8th in the SEC (Getting beat by Tennessee is one thing, getting beaten by Kentucky and Missouri to names is another).

The Tigers also lost 20 players to the transfer portal between August and this time of writing, including the biggest name on the Auburn team in Bo Nix. They replaced him with a not-particularly-good Texas A&M transfer Zach Calzada, and Oregon’s Robby Ashford, who could up playing baseball.

As this unravels, it would be no surprise if we see Tank Bigsby enter the transfer portal, as well as more players before the end of the Spring.

THE ALABAMA LOSS

Of course, this wouldn’t have been a factor if Auburn hadn’t lost to Alabama in excruciating circumstances. Or Houston. Or Penn State on the road. But it did. They finished 6-7 – the school’s first losing season since 2012.

And that alone would have gotten the ‘Auburn Family’ sharpening their knives.

It’s going to be a bare time for Auburn Football – even as basketball, gymnastics and, er, bass fishing are on the rise.

Harsin hasn’t returned from his vacation in Mexico yet, but he’s going to face hell-on-earth when he does.