meeting adversity head on

[aubiefifty 17,487]

Auburn, Bryan Auburn,

By Joseph Goodman | jgoodman@al.com

5-6 minutes

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Bryan Harsin wanted the challenge of a lifetime when he accepted the position of head football coach of Auburn University. Welp, he got it and then some.

Welcome to the big time, Bryan. Finally. After all that. The path to this enormous spotlight has not been easy, or even fair. No matter what anyone thinks, we can all agree on that. This has been the start of a new era for Auburn football like we’ve never seen before (and hopefully never have to experience again).

Auburn is under the lights of Penn State’s Beaver Stadium on Saturday night, but reaching that stage for Auburn’s new coach has been more difficult than any game in a place called Happy Valley could ever be. Ranked No.22 after exhibition-style wins against Akron and Alabama State, Auburn remains one of the biggest questions in the country entering the third full Saturday of the college football schedule. Answers are coming.

Here’s what we know already about Auburn’s new coach, though. He prides himself on being ready for all things, and his team, thanks to so many hardships, seems well prepared for any kind of adversity.

They’ve certainly been through enough of it.

Think back to the beginning. Not the blowout victory against Akron. I mean the very beginning. Nothing has been perfect since Harsin’s first day on the job. For Auburn’s new coach, every step of the way has felt like third-and-long in the fourth quarter and down by two scores.

With little to no connection to Auburn, Harsin was hired in December of 2020 for a job that many consider to be the toughest in the country. It was during a pandemic, so he couldn’t recruit. It was at the height of rival Alabama’s run to a national championship, so no one really seemed to care.

They even had Harsin’s introductory news conference on Christmas Eve.

Few were listening when Harsin said, “It’s really simple. We want to win championships, and we want to do it a certain way.”

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Class and integrity were Harsin’s talking points that day, but before anything he had to build a staff and then a team amid COVID-19. Then Harsin actually got COVID-19 during fall camp and went into quarantine.

He wanted to test himself against the best when he left Boise State for Auburn. He wanted hard. The road to now couldn’t have been much harder. To make it even more difficult on himself, Harsin apparently took the stairs instead of the elevator the whole way.

To demonstrate the type of team culture he wants to create for Auburn, Harsin implemented a policy that only injured players can take the elevator in Auburn’s athletic facility. That’s a silly gimmick, but the point of the lesson sends a clear message. There are no easy ways to the top of the SEC standings, and it’s going to take steps.

Who is Bryan Harsin? He was a career backup quarterback who fell in love with the art of preparing for football games. Smart guy, strong convictions and driven to extremes, obviously, because it doesn’t get any more intense in college football than being the coach at Auburn.

“As a backup quarterback, you get to see all of these experiences from the sidelines,” said Houston Nutt, the coach who was there in the beginning with Harsin at Boise State. “Backups see the decisions being made and why. When he started getting a great reputation as a coordinator, I wasn’t surprised. All those things all add up, and now all these things make him what he is today.

“He’s only going to get better. It’s tough to jump into the SEC.”