Before Hugh Freeze, Kevin Steele was last Auburn coach local HS heard from

Kevin Steele, not the man that spent two seasons taking over $5 million in salary from Auburn football to recruit before being fired for not doing so, Bryan Harsin, was the last Tigers coach before Hugh Freeze to contact the coaches at Jackson High School in Jackson, Alabama according to AL.com’s Ainslie Lee.

“Despite Auburn having one of its former players on the roster, when Bryan Harsin was the head coach of the Tigers, Jackson didn’t get much love from Auburn,” Lee prefaced before saying, “Up until Hugh Freeze and his staff took over, current Alabama defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, who previously held the same title on The Plains from 2016-20, was the last Auburn coach to contact Flournoy and Jackson.” That struck Jackson head coach Cody Flournoy the wrong way and caused the Aggies locker room leader to go on a tirade seemingly aimed at the Boise native Harsin.

“We’ve got teachers here in the school that are talking about (Pritchett) getting drafted and stuff, so you know, there’s still a lot of close ties with Auburn,” Flournoy prefaced before saying, “(Steele’s) the last time we ever heard from anybody at Auburn and we’ve got a player there. At Jackson, every year or two, we’re always going to have good players. And that’s not that I’m producing good players, but Jackson and this community… this Highway 43 corridor in West Alabama that we’re on… there’s always players coming out of it. What I’m getting at is to not hear from Auburn… it’s like at least y’all could give us a call or something. We’ve got a guy there. It’s like, y’all know where (Pritchett) come from, don’t ya?”

Bryan Harsin will have very few positive headlines from the Auburn football beat

Harsin’s name, one he actually built up well in his home state of Idaho leading the Boise State Broncos before making his way to the Plains, will rarely be associated with a positive headline if coming from the Auburn football beat.

Forget all of the condescending behavior toward press scrums. Harsin’s behavior behind the scenes caused a mass exodus of transfers from the program and set the program back years in recruiting.

Not all players hated Harsin. One prominent walk-on has reported nothing but positive things from the Harsin years. But when it comes to major Alabama sports media outlets, you will almost never hear his tenure framed positively.