RoT believes former USC HC, current Auburn football target better than last 4 Tigers coaches

Reign of Troy’s Evan Desai believes that Lane Kiffin would not only be an upgrade over the recently-fired Bryan Harsin — an opinion anyone with a pair of eyes who has seen an Auburn football game since the start of the 2021 season besides this past Saturday’s Mississippi State matchup shares as well — but that he’d be the best Tigers coach of the 21st century if he were hired.

Desai made the claim that Kiffin would be better than the last four Auburn football head coaches, including Gus Malzahn, who took the Tigers to the final BCS Championship following the 2013 season, Gene Chizik, who won the second national championship in program history, and Tommy Tuberville, whose 2004 team went undefeated but was held out of that year’s championship game:

"“Kiffin is currently a better coach than what any of the last four Auburn coaches have been since leaving Auburn, and each of those three coaches had a season where they finished at WORST as the No. 2 team in the country.”"

Is Desai on to something, or is he simply throwing daggers at a program that is no stranger to taking shots from any media source outside of East Central Alabama?

Lane Kiffin would be the best Auburn football hire since Pat Dye

While Lane Kiffin doesn’t have the accomplishments that Gus Malzahn and Gene Chizik achieved on the Plains, he does have a history of rebuilding programs practically from scratch into double-digit winning squads.

Even though Malzahn never had issues recruiting talent, his offensive schemes were often blamed for not getting the most out of the talent he recruited — the same could certainly not be said of Kiffin given what he did at Florida Atlantic and Ole Miss.

And while Kiffin has not reached the heights of Chizik’s 2010 title year, half of his career isn’t littered with losing seasons. Who knows how Chizik’s career would have been viewed if not for Cam Newton.

As for Tommy Tuberville, his career coaching success is defined by his Auburn football career, but it took a losing season and a middling tenure at Ole Miss prior to get there.

Evan Desai is correct in saying that Kiffin would be the best coaching hire for the Tigers, given that he is the most talented head coach Auburn will have had since Pat Dye. Desai is incorrect in saying that taking to the Plains wouldn’t be the best move for his career.