Mailbag 229: Which head coach candidates best fit Auburn?
This week: 2025 DJ Durkin vs. 2020 Kevin Steele, hiring timelines, rebounding, the Houston game, basketball predictions and geography
AUBURN — Welcome back to the mailbag.
It’s a busy week, even though the football team isn’t playing Saturday. Basketball faces the No. 1 team in the country Sunday.
We’re sending you this mailbag on Friday morning, loaded with questions about the football coaching search and the early-season basketball landscape. You already have a subscribers-only podcast episode in your inboxes, too.
That’s a lot, so there’s no reason to delay anything with a long introduction. Thanks for reading, listening and subscribing. We hope you enjoy all of it, or at least most of it.
Let’s go.
Everybody has a hot board. Everybody is throwing names around. You have seen every snap of the last decade-plus, covering four head coaches, as well as more practice time than most.
Which “available” head coach do you think best fits Auburn? He may not be as highly successful as some would want, or the top name on the board.
But, one day, people are going to start paying attention to how a guy fits in the overall culture of our university and our program. (See Pearl, Bruce for an example when desire, determination and culture all aligned.)
Bandit
Before I answer this question, let me make a few things clear: My job is going to be to cover the next Auburn football head coach, whoever it is. I can share my opinion on what I think would work best for the Tigers right now, but a) it really doesn’t matter in the end and b) it’s just an opinion. It doesn’t carry more weight than anyone else’s.
Coaching hires are notoriously tough to predict. I’ve seen a head coach who got massive backlash here win a national championship. I’ve seen a defensive coordinator that felt initially like an underwhelming hire become one of the biggest coaching successes during my time covering the program. I’ve seen a head coach who won a lot of games elsewhere fall flat here. And, most recently, I’ve seen a head coach who a good number of people around here felt like was an ideal fit not deliver on the field.
But if you’re asking me, as someone who spends a lot of time writing, talking and thinking about Auburn football for a living, who I think is the best fit for this program right now? Well, I definitely have my own thoughts on the matter. Just remember I’m not a fortune teller and that I’ll do my same job, regardless of who gets hired.