In defending brand new head coach Bryan Harsin–who has unfairly been scrutinized for the poor National Signing Day showing the Tigers had–Paul Finebaum took a big-time shot at the Auburn football program (via 247sports):
"“I’ve seen some of the reports out of there. Blaming Bryan Harsin for anything right now is really foolhardy,” Finebaum said this week on WJOX-FM. “He inherited an absolute mess. To me, he’s handled himself well publicly. He hasn’t blamed it on his predecessor. He’s just taken the bullets. … The administration is clearly behind him. They bucked the people that give tens of millions of dollars to the program to bring him in. I think he has that support."
Admittedly, the 2020 season wasn’t a banner year for the program. A loss to Will Muschamp’s lowly South Carolina Gamecocks, followed by unimpressive victories over lesser programs in Arkansas and Missouri and culminating in double-digit losses to Alabama, Georgia, and Texas A&M.
That said, an absolute mess feels like a bar that was set by the Tennessee Volunteers, and one Auburn football doesn’t clear (or come close).
On Rocky Top, the coaching search dysfunction included a near-one million dollar payment to Kevin Steele–who didn’t coach a single game for the program and didn’t even really do anything yet as a defensive analyst.
Their recruiting has also gotten them in serious trouble. With news coming out that the Tennessee Volunteers program was paying recruits, Knoxville, Tennessee became the home of the biggest laughingstock team in all of the NCAA. Vols Fans hoping Josh Heupel will be the saving grace may not want to look back at UCF’s disappointing 2020 campaign that concluded in a Boca Raton Bowl blowout at BYU’s hands.
Regardless, the Tigers have quickly and gracefully transitioned from long-time coach Gus Malzahn to an almost entirely new regime under Harsin and still improved their Class of 2021 by 21 spots in 247sports’ rankings and currently sit at #27.
That doesn’t sound like an absolute mess to me.