Auburn football: Fans and players react to Bert Watts hire

The Auburn football coaching staff has filled every vacancy now that Bert Watts has been named the special teams coordinator/outside linebackers coach.

Bryan Harsin’s first (and, if all goes well, longtime) coaching staff is a mix of familiar faces from Boise State, opposing SEC schools, and holdovers from Gus Malzahn’s staff (and thus, familiar faces to those on the Plains).

Notable Tigers Twitter personality Pablo Escobarner opted against public displays of frustration following the departure of Travis Williams, a fan-favorite in Auburn, and instead trusted Harsin’s vision for the future:

Fellow Twitter user Josh Black had a more long-term way of reflecting on Williams not being retained:

An interesting wrinkle in the Williams story is the fact that fellow Malzahn-era holdover Cadillac Williams was retained.

Harsin didn’t want to do away with all former past Auburn football stars, and Cadillac was deemed more essential for future success than the outbound linebackers coach.

Why this ended up happening is anyone’s guess. Harsin has shown he likes to spread responsibilities out to several members of his coaching staff.

He has his way, and it worked for Boise State for the better part of the past decade.

It still left fans shocked and dejected to see Wiliams go–but happy that he was here to begin with–though:

Bert Watts will not be in the most enviable of positions as the man to replace T-Will, but at least he has the support of Derick Hall–whose opinion means quite a bit considering he will be directly working with him:

Here’s to the next step in Coach Williams’ journey, and for the next step here in Auburn for Watts!