Auburn football: Jimmy Rane denies BoT’s involvement in Bryan Harsin inquiry

Auburn football HC Bryan Harsin went through the wringer this offseason due to an inquiry into his conduct that became public, grew wickedly ugly, and ultimately turned out to be a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

Everyone from former Tiger Daren Bates to the masses on Twitter took it to the Auburn Board of Trustees, whose meddling has long been a hot-button issue on the Plains and has many believing several coaching staffs were doomed to fail because of them.

Yellawood CEO Jimmy Rane claimed innocence, however, saying that fans have long had the wrong target in their crosshairs.

According to Rane, who spoke at a charity golf tournament last week that Harsin participated in, the Auburn Board of Trustees only fires presidents and not coaches:

"“Trustees don’t hire and fire football coaches,. We hire and fire presidents. So, I’m not aware of any role the trustees played in that at all. I think there were questions that the administration had, and (Gogue) is the kind of a president that wants facts. He’s going to do thorough investigations, which was a providence of the administration. Certainly not the trustees.”"

The Auburn football HC Bryan Harsin inquiry was apparently done by Jay Gogue

Why would a person in any position of power admit that he did something counterproductive to the program? Rane’s response was par for the course of someone in his shoes, and nothing less should have been expected.

Blaming former AU president Jay Gogue, who happened to just retire two weeks, was a classic deflection that was almost politician-like in its execution. It’d be admirable if it wasn’t so maddening.

With new AU president Chris Roberts now in charge, the hope is that another embarrassing public debacle isn’t in store for Auburn football for the rest of 2022 and beyond.

Don’t count on it, though. There’s a history on the Plains of boosters that don’t know they’re place, and said boosters will never admit it.