Auburn football is conducting interviews as we speak for the most coveted open head coaching position available in college football. The War Eagle ranks all of the possible candidates.
Today, Auburn football is conducting one of its most crucial head coaching interviews since the team parted ways with Gus Malzahn just a day after the Tigers won their final regular-season game against Mississippi State last Saturday.
Steve Sarkisian, fresh off of a victory over the Florida Gators in the SEC Championship, will be meeting with Auburn officials today to discuss the HC vacancy. He isn’t alone as the only potential candidate either:
Mr. Godfrey was tough, but fair about Auburn’s authenticity with it’s coaching search and labeling Steele as a usurper, because it is starting to look like a Ceasarean coup on Steele’s end. Steele may not steal the job from the beloved Malzahn after all.
Has Steele been stopped?
5. Kevin Steele
No Auburn football fan should want Steele as the man in charge of locker room morale in the Plains if he ends up being the reason Malzahn is on the job market. Players loved him, with former and current Tigers being livid he was let go.
The War Eagle wants no deal for Steele.
4. Neal Brown
Neal Brown spent a good chunk of his career as head coach of Troy of the Sunbelt Conference. He did a damn good job in that post, winning the Sunbelt Coach of the Year in 2017 after winning the Conference title that year. His work with that program led to a culture that has carried on to being able to hang with college football’s littlest powerhouse, Coastal Carolina, in 2020.
Now at West Virginia, Brown has the Mountaineers in the middle of the pack in the Big 12. This season has been up and down, with the Iowa State Cyclones downing Brown’s WVU squad 42-6 in the team’s final outing in the 2020 regular season. A win against a ranked Kansas State and a close loss to Texas are the mark of decent season in Morgantown…but is decent good enough for Auburn football?
3. Tony Elliot
The Clemson offensive coordinator said he was not interviewing for the head coaching role at Auburn and was even “upset” at the rumors he was.
Exactly as he should say.
The Tigers (the ones that are heading to the College Football Playoff) do not need a distraction in Elliot interviewing for another position. There is still a strong possibility he is considered for the Tigers job in the 334 area code behind closed doors.
2. Steve Sarkisian
Do you know the enemy? Sarkisian wears the Crimson Tide colors proudly now, but he could make a Judas-like defection from Tuscaloosa to the Plains. Perhaps his intel could be valuable, although not more valuable than what he brings as an offensive minded football guru.
Sark has engineered the Tide’s second-ranked scoring offense in 2020. No knock to Kent State or the MAC (we all love MACtion weekdays) but Alabama doing that against the likes of Auburn football, the Florida Gators, and Texas A&M is a greater feat than covering the spread against the Akron Zippers.
Again, no knock to the Golden Flashes.
Something just doesn’t feel right about Sarkisian roaming the sidelines at Jordan-Hare, despite how impressive of a resume he brings.
1. Billy Napier
A nice call-back to the Sunbelt love from before, Billy Napier is the War Eagle’s preferred choice out of all the coaches named by Godfrey. The Rajun Cajun’s have suffered one loss in 2020, and it was quite the forgivable one to college football’s cinderella story of the year, the Chanticleers.
A field goal is the difference between Napier’s Rajun Cajun’s being the toast of the college football town. Perhaps if they can get their rematch in a rescheduled Sun Belt title game (please CFB gods) then he can further solidify his already impressive case to be Auburn football’s next voice of the locker-room.