How Kevin Steele held together Auburn's signing class amid uncertainty

[aubiefifty 18,231]

How Kevin Steele held together Auburn's signing class amid uncertainty

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

7-9 minutes

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When the decision came down early Sunday afternoon, Kevin Steele found himself in a unique, albeit challenging, position.

Auburn’s fifth-year defensive coordinator was named the program’s interim head coach Sunday after the Tigers parted ways with Gus Malzahn following eight seasons — many of which the program spent flirting with the idea of making a change — leaving Steele with the unenviable task of trying to salvage the 2021 recruiting class with the early signing period just three days away. Since the early signing period was implemented in 2017, no Power 5 program had gone into it without a full-time head coach in place.

What proceeded was a whirlwind 72 hours for Steele, who spearheaded Auburn’s efforts to keep its 2021 class intact Wednesday amid the program’s coaching transition and during a year in which recruits have been unable to visit campuses since March due to the ongoing pandemic.

“We did the best we could,” Steele said. “Of course, the fact that the change happened a couple days before signing day was a big challenge for the staff in its own right, recruiting without a head coach for the final three days to signing day was certainly a challenge.”

By the time Steele took the podium for his early signing day press conference, Auburn receiver letters of intent from 12 players, including two new commitments — three-star defensive back A.D. Diamond and three-star defensive end Ian Mathews — added to the fold by lunchtime.

The Tigers managed to hold onto and sign their three highest-rated commitments in four-star defensive tackle Lee Hunter, four-star safety Ahmari Harvey and four-star dual-threat quarterback Dematrius Davis, but also saw four-star offensive lineman Jaeden Roberts — Davis’ high school teammate — decommit and reopen his recruitment. Three other commits — Tar’varish Dawson, Phillip O’Brien Jr. and Harvard grad transfer offensive lineman Eric Wilson — plan to wait until February to sign, while Steele said one more player, a defensive lineman, plans to sign Friday on his birthday.

“The staff did a great job the last couple days, relentless in their pursuit of trying to keep the class together and represent Auburn in terms of a way people at Auburn would be proud,” Steele said. “Because when you’re trying to sign a class without a head coach, it’s certainly a challenge…. We only lost one to another school that we had committed, which, in its own right, is phenomenal that it’s only one without a head coach in place.”

That challenge began in earnest Sunday after news came down that Malzahn’s tenure on the Plains had come to an end, with Steele named the interim head coach — and now a serious candidate for the full-time position. Steele and the remainder of the coaching staff first met with Auburn’s players Sunday afternoon to talk about the situation and sort through their emotions in the aftermath of athletics director Allen Greene and university president Jay Gogue’s decision to oust Malzahn. Players, as was evident in their outpouring of support on social media, were shocked and many hurt by the school’s decision to fire Malzahn, but Steele and the other assistants assured them that “all the reasons they came to Auburn are still in place.”

After the initial wave of emotions subsided with the team, Steele and the staff got to work. For Steele, it began with watching cut-ups of Auburn’s offensive commits and targets, because none were in his recruiting area and he hadn’t recruited them personally — nor had he the opportunity to see them on campus this year. He and the rest of the staff also began working the phones late into Sunday night.

They touched base will all of Auburn’s commitments first — the 12 high school prospects who were committed at the time, as well as the two transfers — and then began reaching out to other recruits who were on the program’s big board. Steele also urged his staff to take a bold swing at some guys who were committed to other schools — even if the odds weren’t in Auburn’s favor.

“We jumped out on a limb and had some fun and actually called some recruits to see if we could flip them,” Steele said. “And trying to flip somebody without a head coach kind of makes it interesting, but we took a gamble on that and made some progress actually.”

Steele said Auburn was actually able to flip two recruits, though they ultimately flipped back to the other schools before Wednesday. Steele and the coaches tried to sell each of them on the opportunity presented at Auburn.

“(The) opportunity to come to a great university, get a great education, be around a great family and have a chance to go to Atlanta and win a ring, which would then put you in position to play for it all,” Steele said. “You can do that at Auburn. You can do it every year at Auburn; it’s expected at Auburn. We’re selling a vision. We had fun trying to flip some of them.”

It was more of the same on Monday and Tuesday, beginning at 6:50 a.m. in the office at Auburn’s athletics complex and well past midnight each night. Steele and coaches called recruits. They called high school coaches. They kept in touch with the players already committed to Auburn in an effort to keep the class together.

“If you’re not talking to them, somebody else is,” Steele said. “Obviously, what happened Monday and Sunday night was once the news broke, obviously our recruits—our committed recruits—started getting calls. And there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing illegal about it. It’s not bad, buy you know, other schools started calling them trying to get them to flip. We spent a lot of time making sure that didn’t happen.”

For the most part, that wound up being the case. Ten of Auburn’s 12 signees on Wednesday were already committed to the program, with the Roberts the lone decommitment since Malzahn’s firing. The four-star offensive lineman specifically cited the coaching change as the reason he wanted to reopen his commitment and reassess his future.

As Auburn wrapped up its afternoon, the Tigers had the nation’s 46th-ranked recruiting class, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, though their average commit rating (88.76) was good enough for 19th in the nation. It wasn’t a quality issue for Auburn in the rankings; it was a quantity one, with Steele noting that the next head coach — whoever it may be — will have about 11 spots to fill by February’s National Signing Day.

All things considered, it was an admirable job by Steele and the rest of the coaching staff under unusual circumstances.

“You wake up and win the day,” Steele said. “Tomorrow will take care of itself. When a young man is picking a school, they don’t always know what’s next. Auburn sells itself. It’s an easy place, in a lot of ways, to recruit to, because it sells itself. That -- we can sit here and say it was hard or rough, but you just wake up and win the day. As far as I know, I’m still employed at Auburn University, and so is every other assistant coach on that hallway. We owe our all to Auburn, and that’s what everybody lined up and did in a positive way.

“Sometimes, when you’re behind in the fourth quarter, you got to fight. You can’t give up. You got to buckle your chinstrap, hit them in the mouth, win the down and win the next play. It’s not a time to sit there and worry about how you feel. It’s not that way when it’s in the fourth quarter of a big game, and it’s not that situation today.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.

[fredst 9,070]

Steele (and the rest of the staff) deserves major credit for doing as best they could with the signing class in a difficult situation. Hope he is somehow rewarded, just not with the position of HC

[AURealist 2,194]

I expect more puff piece attempts to sell us on Steele as the PTB blow the HC search.

[gravejd 3,304]

I'll give credit where credit is due. Great job on signing these guys coaches! We have the skeleton of a decent class and to pull that off with no head coach is very impressive in my book

[twilli13 600]

Man screw this fluff job article. Obvious attempt to sell Steele as a viable option. I'm so tired of the ineptness of this cluelessness administration and the propaganda machine that spins mediocrity as quality. The whole system stinks. Need to clean house. 

[auburn4ever 1,266]

Well freakin good for him.

[autan 809]

CKS knows what he is doing with recruiting. May be stronger as RC than DC which is saying something. I may be wrong but I don't think he's as active with recruiting here as other stops. Most think our top recruiters are TWill and Cadillac, thereby they should be retained by next HC.  I did note no LBs or RBs in the list of signees. Just sayin......

[AURex 2,255]

Maybe with this kind of happy talk he can save his job as DC, but fact is, Auburn signed a very weak class yesterday and lost a large number of the prospects, including some of the best ones, to our rivals.