Auburn football: Bryan Harsin hires Bert Watts to complete staff

As of today, Auburn football head coach Bryan Harsin has completed his first coaching staff with the hiring of his tenth assistant: Bert Watts.

According to Tom Green of AL.com, Watts has assumed the role of outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator for the Auburn Tigers. Watts spent 2018-19 as defensive coordinator at Fresno State, and last season at Memphis as linebackers coach.

While the upside of the hire is that Watts is a coordinator that Coach Harsin seems to have utmost confidence in, the downside is that it means there will be no spot on the coaching staff for Travis Williams.

Fan favorite and successful assistant–more commonly known as T-Will–has coached for the Tigers since 2016, but will not be retained in the coming season…and some fans are very unhappy to see T-Will leaving the Plains:

After Harsin announced Cadillac Williams would be staying on the coaching staff, many got their hopes up that soon T-Will would be announced as will.

Clearly, Auburn football went in a different direction with the Watts hire.

Cadillac Williams, running backs coach, will be the only assistant retained on Harsin’s first coaching staff, and Watts will become the third former defensive coordinator to join the staff, along with Jeff Schmedding from Boise State and Derek Mason from Stanford.

Bert Watts becomes another hire of Harsin’s with west coast ties, and according to AL.com this matches up with his vision of expanding Auburn recruiting to the west coast.

Although we’re sad to see T-Will go, we’re excited for the future that involves Coach Watts.

War Eagle, and welcome to the Plains Coach Watts!