stay hungry... set a standard in Year 2

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Bryan Harsin wants Auburn to 'stay hungry,' set a standard in Year 2

Published: Aug. 31, 2022, 7:07 a.m.

6-7 minutes

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Bryan Harsin learned a hard lesson about his team in Year 1. He hopes to carry that knowledge into his second season — and avoid a repeat of 2021.

Everyone knows how Harsin’s first season on the Plains unfolded by now. Auburn got out to a 6-2 start to the season, climbing to No. 12 in the AP poll at the end of October following a home win against Ole Miss — the second of back-to-back wins against ranked opponents. Things seemed to be going well for the Tigers in Year 1, and then the calendar flipped to November, and the season spun out of control.

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Auburn opened November with a road loss at Texas A&M and then blew a 25-point lead at home the following week against Mississippi State, surrendering 40 unanswered points to the Bulldogs. Along with losing the game, Auburn also lost starting quarterback Bo Nix and kicker Anders Carlson to season-ending injuries. The Tigers ultimately lost five straight games to close the season, finishing 6-7 overall and with their first losing record since 2012.

“For us, it really is and has to be a 1-0 mentality,” Harsin said. “I learned that about this team last year. We’re 6-2, we’re ranked, and things are really, really good. One of the things we have to be careful of it when things get really, really good. I think you can lose your focus, you can lose your competitiveness, and that’s not what we need to happen with this football team.

“We need to stay hungry, no matter who we’re playing, and I think the best teams in the country do that. There’s a standard; it doesn’t matter who you play.”

The 1-0 mentality is nothing new; that was the motto Harsin brought with him when he took over the program in December 2020. But after how last season ended, following a promising start to his tenure as head coach, he knew he needed to find a way to reinforce that mantra and make sure his team understands how to maintain its composure in the face of adversity and doesn’t get complacent when things are going well.

“There’s a game within the game, and there’s a standard of how you play,” Harsin said. “When you watch championship teams, they might be up by 40 points, but they’re upset about missing a gap, and we can’t just be up by 40 points and patting ourselves on the back and feeling like we’ve arrived, when we still have a standard of how we need to play. So, that’s what we’re trying to get done here is build that mindset into this football team that no matter who we play, we have a standard of how we play.”

That standard, in Harsin’s mind, is that of a “hardnosed,” competitive and prepared team.

He believes he saw that during last season’s Iron Bowl, when Auburn went toe-to-toe with the one of the nation’s top teams—the eventual national runner-up—for 60 minutes and four overtime periods. Auburn held Alabama without a touchdown until the final minute of regulation, and although the Tigers went on to lose in quadruple-overtime, it was largely an effort that the team felt good about, even nine months later. It was the execution part that needed to improve.

“That game really showed us a lot, just from the standpoint of the kind of defense that Auburn is capable of playing,” senior team captain Derick Hall said at SEC Media Days. “That’s the blue-collar Auburn defense that everyone knows and everyone is used to. So, just trying to sustain that and build off that, learning things that we need to learn and take away from that game going into this year was the biggest thing.

“And I think guys, once that happened, we might have lost the game, but once we played that kind of caliber defense — that was the standard. And no one is backing down from that. So, we’re either going to keep rising or we’re going to hold that standard.”

Of course, Auburn needs to establish that standard on both sides of the ball. The Tigers hope they can do so on offense behind Harsin, new offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau, newly named starting quarterback T.J. Finley, whose command of the offense helped him earn the starting role this preseason, and a run game led by preseason All-SEC selection Tank Bigsby.

Auburn will have its first opportunity to set that standard Saturday, when it opens the season at home against FCS opponent Mercer. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and the Tigers enter as a 31.5-point favorite.

Despite being heavily favored against an opponent that, on paper, shouldn’t present too much trouble for Auburn, Harsin is making sure his players don’t overlook Mercer. It’s not so much about being on upset watch; it’s about making sure the Tigers approach Week 1 with the same mindset that Harsin expects of his team every week, regardless of who the opponent is.

“For Mercer, this will be the biggest game of the year; they want to come in here, they want to play well, and they want to show everybody they can beat an SEC team,” Harsin said. “If we’re thinking about (getting) our second string in the game in the third quarter, and our players are out there spitting seeds at halftime and all that because we’re just going to blow through these guys, that’s not the mindset I want to create on this team whatsoever. What I hope we have is a bunch of guys out there and they don’t call off the dogs; the coaches can do that.

“You’re job as a player is to play for 3 hours and 24 minutes as hard as you can. If you get pulled out of the game, that’s because the coaches chose to do that, so it’s very — I got to be very careful about playing the hype game with what everybody thinks but then also being realistic of coaching a football team of players who need to go out there and play their best football each and every time.”

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