Pike Road’s Khurtiss Perry belongs in an Auburn football uniform, but Alabama is being forecasted as his choice…probably due to their defiance of the narrative in which they were no longer the team to beat in college football. The Tide turned the tide by embarrassing Georgia in the SEC Championship game.
There is something that Bryan Harsin has in the ‘Harsinal’ that Nick Saban can’t guarantee himself.
Auburn football HC Bryan Harsin can promise Khurtiss Perry early playing time
Perry was at the Iron Bowl and saw the environment in Jordan-Hare Stadium first-hand. The prevailing memory from his time was watching the Tigers prevent the Tide from doing anything offensively until the fourth quarter.
Raw facts here: most of his time spent on the Plains watching his two primary options duke it out was with the view of AU on top of their in-state rival.
He could be a part of that right away in Auburn getting snaps along the DL from the jump, whereas signing with Saban means sitting on the sidelines until his sophomore season at soonest due to the monstars-esque defensive front in Tuscaloosa.
Nick Alvarez of AL.com phrased the catch-22 flawlessly:
"Will Perry join Alabama, like many have predicted, and bolster a highly-talented group of freshmen in Nick Saban’s defensive line? Or will Perry be a crown jewel of Tigers’ head coach Bryan Harsin’s first real chance to put a high school group together in the Plains? His decision may come down to prestige with the Tide and early playing time with the Tigers."
Auburn football showed flashes of brilliance throughout the season. September was blowouts and 50/50 on close-calls, October featured the three best wins of the season with a UGA blowout sandwiched in between, and November had a few leads…with all of them being blown.
Harsin came into a tough situation as a coach hired late during a pandemic where he couldn’t recruit with the usual advantages of the Loveliest Village.
Now, the situation is far more attractive. Perry truly doesn’t have a wrong decision to make as an Alabama product that has the two premier universities from the state pursuing him.
But it’d be a bigger challenge and a potentially larger payoff if he could be apart of something special with Auburn.