Scarbinsky: Clear-eyed, cold-blooded: With football, Auburn’s president means business
- Published: Nov. 03, 2022, 5:57 a.m.
Dr. Christopher B. Roberts is different. That’s what they said from the start. The unsolicited testimonials began even before he took office. One after another, Auburn family members of long standing came forward to share their good feelings about the incoming president and how he would set a new course for the front porch of the university, better known as Auburn Athletics.
The dean of the school’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering may be no stranger to the Plains, they said, given his 28 years there overall, but his leadership style might be a shock to the system.
Their message, in short: Just watch.
They were not kidding.
Athletics Director Allen Greene found that out when Roberts refused to extend his soon-to-expire contract and allowed him to walk out the door in August on the eve of the football season.
Head football coach Bryan Harsin learned the hard way when Roberts let him go Monday and allowed the official press release announcing the change in leadership of the football program to go out without mentioning Harsin’s name.
There was no thanking Harsin for his efforts, such as they were, during his brief time on the job. There was no wishing him the best of luck in his future endeavors. There was no looking back, in anger or at all.
The message was short, sweet and, in its unsparing way, appropriately savage, a clear-eyed, cold-blooded sign larger than the Jumbotron in Jordan-Hare Stadium. In less time than it takes to complete a football season, Roberts didn’t exactly settle all family business, but he put everyone on notice.
As the statement said, “President Roberts made the decision.” Does anyone have any doubt?
This is not the Auburn of Steven Leath, who signed off on one of the worst contracts in SEC football history this side of College Station, Texas, when he raised and extended Gus Malzahn in 2017 and doubled down on the damage by hiring the not-ready-for-prime-time Greene.
This is no longer the Auburn of Jay Gogue, who preceded and then followed Leath in his usual way. Meekly. Never one to spend much time concerning himself with athletics, Gogue allowed the panic hire of Harsin without a full vetting and then, as it became clear after his first year that Harsin was the wrong man for the job, passed on the opportunity to correct that mistake in February.
From all appearances, this is no longer the Auburn that bows to the whims of boosters whose love for the program too often clouds their judgment. If this were Just Auburn Being Auburn, the new athletics director would be old reliables Tim Jackson or Rich McGlynn, each of whom has his supporters in the department and on the board.
Instead Roberts did exactly what his supporters told us he would do. He hired his own man, Mississippi State AD John Cohen, to run the athletics department. Cohen is a proven professional at this level and in this conference, something no one could say about Harsin or Greene before, during or after their misadventures on the Plains.
To fully complete the transformation of the athletics department, Cohen is expected to hire a football coach who hasn’t necessarily worked on the Auburn staff in the past but who won’t have to ask for directions to the Atlanta Airport, who will not arrive under the delusion that he can outsmart Nick Saban and Kirby Smart without matching their detailed, systematic and tireless efforts in recruiting.
It remains to be seen who lands the best available job in college football, but it would be hard for Cohen and company to choose someone with less impressive credentials than every Auburn hire going back to and including Pat Dye. Obviously Dye had the right stuff to become the most important coach in Auburn history, but on Day One, his head coaching resume started at East Carolina and stopped at Wyoming.
Of the five Auburn bosses since Dye, only Tommy Tuberville arrived with prior SEC head coaching experience, four years in all at Ole Miss. In some kind of karmic coincidence, the person best suited to make everyone forget the last 21 games just happens to sit in Tuberville’s old seat in Oxford.
As Auburn coaching candidates go, Lane Kiffin makes almost too much sense. There’s no need to detail all the stellar work he’s done in his three years with the Rebels. Right now, at 8-1, he’s grinding during an open week, sitting there waiting for Nick Saban and Alabama just like a spider.
There is not another blip on Auburn’s radar that flashes as brightly as Kiffin. He’s an offensive maestro beholden to the talents of his players, not the ego of his own system. He’s a transfer portal mastermind who’s also willing to sit alone in the mist to watch and woo a diamond-in-the-rough high school tailback. Schooled by the no-nonsense Saban. Infused with the spirit of the take-no-prisoners Steve Spurrier.
You want more rat poison? Take a taste of this: Two more wins, and Kiffin will become the first Ole Miss coach since the legendary John Vaught in 1959 and 1960 to lead the Rebels to consecutive 10-win seasons. He also will join Vaught as the only Ole Miss coaches with more than one season of 10 or more wins.
Vaught’s name is on the stadium. Dye’s is on the field at Auburn. Three guesses as to the only coach in Auburn history to lead the Tigers to back-to-back 10-win seasons. Dye did it in 1988 and 1989. The family is waiting for someone to do it again.
It may be forgotten by most, but Dye had a sharp tongue of his own. The most famous example was this interview exchange:
How long will it take you to beat Alabama?
Sixty minutes.
Boom. Sounds like something Kiffin would say. Auburn would be fortunate to hear him say something similarly audacious, or anything at all, from a podium standing beside Cohen and Roberts. The family would truly be back in business.
