Auburn football: Kevin Steele HC favorite despite #StopSteele movement

The Auburn football head coaching search is still ongoing, but Kevin Steele appears to be the favorite despite the #StopSteele movement.

Auburn football fans, by and large, are not happy with how the current search for the next head coach of the Tigers is going. Of the external names that have been brought up, there has not been one that has seemingly captivated the attention of the Auburn faithful.

Lane Kiffin got mixed reviews when I asked the Twitterverse their thoughts on the Ole Miss coach once again abruptly leaving his job. Of course, Kiffin has been known to bolt before, with the Florida Atlantic Owls still wondering why their program savior so badly needed a bigger pond to swim in than the Conference USA. That seemed to be the biggest deterrent for the offensive-minded former Alabama defensive coordinator.

Dan Quinn, the other choice, was…not as well received. Few will ever forget the blown 28-3 lead from Quinn’s Falcons in the 2017 Super Bowl, but his 43-42 record overall didn’t exactly help his case either.

At this stage, after the initial hoopla of Gus Malzahn’s departure and the immediate speculation that followed, we now have a more firm grasp of who the search committee is honing in on, per ESPN’s Paul Finebaum  on Darren, Daunic & Chase on 102.5 The Game in Nashville Thursday morning:

"“I say this after literally spending the majority of my life in Alabama and covering Auburn all the time: It’s Auburn. That’s how they do things down there. There’s a small band of brothers who run the athletic department, and none of them go by the name of Allen Greene, who is the de facto AD. They like Kevin Steele. He’s one of them. He knows how to relate to them, and I’m sure some will suspect if he ends up being introduced in a couple days that maybe he did or did not help lead to Gus Malzahn’s overthrow.”“… As of this hour — I’m not just giving you qualifiers, because things change — but as of this hour, he’s the favorite to get the job.”"

Quite honestly, the War Eagle is not impressed. Perhaps the most pressing question that springs to mind is why a search firm was brought in if the man they were going to hire has been part of the program for the last five years.

Search firms get paid on the premise of being the one to deliver the candidate that gets hired, but the Auburn athletic department would practically be burning money if they ponied up a finder’s fee for Steele.

Steele was unsuccessful as a head coach at Baylor (9-36 with a 1-31 conference record) and worse yet, fans don’t even want him as the next voice of Auburn football, judging by the fact that #StopSteele was a trending topic on Wednesday.

We’ll see how this plays out, but a disappointing ending feels imminent.