Auburn football: Cadillac Williams retained by Bryan Harsin

In a brilliant piece of news to cap off the work week, Cadillac Williams will be retained by Bryan Harsin on his Auburn football staff.

Not everyone from the Gus Malzahn era will be getting the ax. On Friday, Auburn football announced that Cadillac Williams, the team’s running backs coach, will be retained by Bryan Harsin for the 2021 season.

Williams is both a former Auburn Tiger and an NFL veteran. An extremely finite amount of people in this world have the ability to impart that wisdom on the current Auburn squad, but the man they call Cadillac has a resume full of accolades, per the official Auburn athletics site:

"A native of Gadsden, Alabama, and product of Etowah High School, Williams finished his Auburn career (2001-04) with 3,831 yards on 741 attempts with 45 touchdowns. He broke the Auburn career record of most running attempts, passing Joe Cribbs, and most touchdowns scored, passing Bo Jackson, while finishing second in total rushing yards and all-purpose yards. The 2004 SEC Special Teams Player of the Year, Williams received nine SEC Player of the Week honors in his career, while helping Auburn to a 37-14 record and three SEC Western Division titles.The fifth pick overall pick of the 2005 NFL draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Williams was named the NFL Rookie of the Year after leading all rookies in rushing yards with 1,178, while posting six 100-yard rushing games in 14 starts. Williams spent six seasons with Tampa Bay before spending his final season in 2011 with the St. Louis Rams."

It’s important that Harsin recognizes that there was value in some of the holdovers from Malzahn’s support staff. Obviously, Kevin Steele, who may end up with the lesser Tigers of LSU, was the first person that should have been shown the door. You don’t get to attempt to strong-arm your way to the top by undermining the man that took a chance on you to begin with.

Good riddance to the man who must have quite the opinion of Fly War Eagle if he ever decided to google his name.

Thankfully, Cadillac won’t be joining him on the way out of the Plains. Williams oversaw one of the few bright spots on the Tigers’ offense in 2020: the run game.

Cartavius “Tank” Bigsby and Shaun Shivers both performed admirably, with Bigsby having a particularly excellent season, falling just outside the top 25 in total yards for the season. Tank is arguably the best running back recruit the program has had since Williams himself, with Kerryon Johnson and Tre Mason the only two with potential arguments about it.

Now, he will have the coach that fostered his development on the sidelines for what should be the most exciting Auburn football season in years.