Things to know about Auburn’s new soccer coach, Bryan Harsin: He’s one of only two head coaches in the Southeastern Conference who never spent a day as a player or coach with the SEC prior to his current job.
The other, Mark Stoops from Kentucky, didn’t travel quite as far to get here. He spent three years preparing as a defense coordinator in the state of Florida which, despite his life in the ACC, is doing the best he can. Stoops is entering its ninth season with the UK and has made it right at home. He is second in the conference on longevity behind Nick Saban of Alabama. So there is long-term hope for Harsin as he goes into his first game in the Plains.
Forget that. He’s been here before. If Akron visits Auburn to open the 2021 season on September 4th, it won’t be the first time Harsin has seen a matchday at the Jordan Hare Stadium. It will be the first time he does this while chasing the home team.
On his first visit, Harsin led the state of Arkansas to the Tiger’s Den to kick off the 2013 season. It was Gus Malzahn’s opening game as Auburn’s head coach. Harsin’s first impression of the place: “You don’t hear anything. It wobbles in the field. It’s tough. I experienced that badly in Arkansas State. Now these people will be on our side. “
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Auburn Football coach Bryan Harsin speaks on Vimeo about culture change, the NIL, and the move south from the Alabama NewsCenter.
In a strange and perhaps unprecedented turn of fate, Harsin follows in Malzahn’s footsteps for the second time. When Malzahn left Arkansas State to return to Auburn as head coach, State hired Harsin. When Auburn decided to pay Malzahn’s more than $ 21 million buyout to stop training there, the Tigers turned to Harsin.
There are other, more conventional connections between them, but as Harsin said, “The weirdness of Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin, I can’t explain that.”
He can explain the motivation behind his personal and professional decision to leave his hometown and alma mater in Boise state after seven successful seasons as head coach to live and compete in the same state as Alabama, the six of the last 12 won national title. On Thursday, Harsin was the last head coach on the podium in the main hall of the SEC Media Days.
Sure, he was as comfortable at Boise as a head coach for the Football Bowl Subdivision, where at 69:19 he won three Mountain West championships, six division titles, five ten-win seasons and seven bowl trips. He and his family had just built a new home there, and “our attitude was that we want to, this is where we want to be, where we want to stay, and that’s what we will do.”
Calling Allen Greene, director of Auburn Athletics, Harsin said, “It piqued my interest more than any other place.”
“As far as you’re getting into that, I think this is what I think,” said Harsin. “For me as a coach and as a competitor, I want to win everything I do. So the preparation and all the things that go with it doesn’t matter whether I’m at (Boises) Capital High School or I’m in Auburn and coaching the soccer team there. It’s all important.
“So the meaning of what it surrounds is definitely different. Definitely different. Much more attention is given to the head coach at Auburn University.
“As for the importance of my job and my perspective, I always felt like I was trying to prepare and find ways to win, and every little thing was important to me. I try to work and develop this way. What we did in our workouts today is important. What we do tomorrow and so on. I will continue this.
“I know the Auburn microscope is very different, but that was part of it. As a competitor, and I have said that, that is why you come to Auburn. That’s why you want to be in the SEC. You want to play against the best. “
Wish fulfilled. This season, Auburn added a road trip to Penn State for its annual White Out game to a loaded schedule that includes the Alabama, LSU, and Georgia programs, 10 of the last 12 SEC titles and seven of the last 12 national ones Have won championships.
On the other hand, only one SEC program other than Alabama, LSU, and Georgia has won any of these trophies during that time. Auburn owns the 2010 and 2013 SEC banners and 2010 BCS Crystal Football.
This recent story helps explain why trust in the Auburn program has not suffered since Harsin’s arrival. Tony Fair, a graduate of UAB’s Transfer Defensive Tackle, tweeted on Sunday, “We’re coming to take the head off the ELEPHANT” in a direct challenge to Alabama. During his visit to SEC Media Days on Thursday, Auburn quarterback Bo Nix was behind the very bold words of his very tall teammate.
“I think I actually like the quote,” said Nix. “I think it’s important because we’re not afraid of Alabama. I know a lot of people want us to be scared, but we really aren’t. “
Nothing knows what it means to get Alabama out of the way, because that’s exactly what he and the Tigers did on his first start against the Crimson Tide as a newcomer in 2019. It was Alabama’s final defeat.
A lot has changed in both programs since then. Nix will play under the middle in his first season in Harsin’s offense. Harsin will feel the love of thousands of Auburn followers during the pre-game Tiger Walks.
The new coach can’t wait to feel at home in the plains.
“I’m excited about Tiger Walk,” said Harsin. “I want to walk all the way down from South Donahue to Jordan Hare Stadium and see all these people screaming, ‘War Eagle!’ I want to be part of a program where if you win, your fans go crazy and go to town and we do toilet paper trees. I mean, how great is that? “
Auburn Football coach Bryan Harsin speaks from the Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo at SEC Media Days 2021.
(Courtesy Alabama NewsCenter)
