Report: Auburn 'expected to hire' Chad Lunsford as special teams coordinator

Auburn is honing in on their next special teams coordinator, as the Tigers are expected to land Chad Lunsford to fill the role, according to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports/247Sports.

He was previously a head coach at Georgia Southern, and he also spent the last three years at FAU, where he was the team’s interim head coach to end the 2024 campaign.

“Auburn is expected to hire Chad Lunsford as special teams coordinator, sources tell @CBSSports/@247Sports,” Zenitz posted on X. “Lunsford, a former head coach at Georgia Southern, worked at FAU the last three years and was the team’s interim head coach to end this season.”

This will be Lunsford’s second go-round with Auburn. From 2009-2013, he served as their Director of Scouting and Player Personnel. Now, he’ll be more involved in the game-day operations, as the team’s special teams coordinator.

The Tigers needed a new special teams coordinator after Tanner Burns joined the staff at Texas State. Chad Lunsford is certainly a coach with an impressive resume, and he’ll be hoping to play a role in Auburn returning to the forefront of the SEC.

Paul Finebaum explains why he’s impressed with Auburn looking ahead to 2025

Of a few teams that Paul Finebaum has interest in for next season in the SEC, Auburn is right towards the top.

The Tigers are coming off of their second season under Hugh Freeze where their record actually worsened by a win, with a finish at 5-7 — despite winning three of their last five. That has Freeze at 11-14 overall going into year three on The Plains.

When asked on ‘McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning’ for teams that he’s interested by in the Southeastern Conference, Finebaum went with the Tigers amongst others like Tennessee and Georgia, despite Freeze’s record.

“I’m also strangely bullish – and I don’t think it’s strange but, every time I bring this up to somebody, they shoot me down. But I like what I see from Auburn,” Finebaum said. “I think they went out and landed a quarterback that I think can help them, even though he maybe didn’t do much for Oklahoma.

“I’m very impressed with the recruiting of Auburn. And I know some people say that, you know, the state doesn’t matter as much anymore, we’re in a national, global world. I realize all that but I think, from an internal pride standpoint, what Huge Freeze is doing is very impressive. Now he still faces a critical season. I’m not washing that away. And it really doesn’t matter and it won’t matter if he doesn’t have a big year but I do like the momentum there.”

All told, none of those positives will matter much if Auburn finishes with six wins or less for the sixth straight season through the 2020s. As for intrigue, though, Paul Finebaum has some when it comes to the Tigers in ’25.

— On3’s Sam Gillenwater contributed to this article.