Bryan Harsin responds to speculation about Auburn job status

There’s been plenty of speculation about Auburn coach Bryan Harsin’s job status this week. He responded to everything in an interview with ESPN.

Harsin spoke with Chris Low and Pete Thamel about rumors surrounding his future with the Tigers. He just wrapped up his first season with Auburn, finishing with a 6-7 record. But the program has seen players transfer and staff turnover this offseason.

Despite this, Harsin made it clear he doesn’t intend on leaving.

“I’m the Auburn coach, and that’s how I’m operating every day,” Harsin told Low and Thamel. “I want this thing to work, and I’ve told our players and told everybody else there is no Plan B. I’m not planning on going anywhere. This was and is the job. That’s why I left the one I was in, to come here and make this place a championship program and leave it better than I found it.”

Late Thursday night, Auburn Live’s Justin Hokanson reported Harsin’s immediate future was in question. Then, on Friday, former Tigers transfer Lee Hunter said on Instagram Friday he left Auburn because the players “got treated like we wasn’t good enough and like dogs.”

Harsin didn’t hold back in his response to any suggestion about player mistreatment or anything of the kind.

“Any attack on my character is bulls—,” Harsin said. “None of that is who I am.”

Bryan Harsin: ‘This is where I want to be’

Harsin double down on his desire to stay at Auburn. He said he wanted to see the job through to the end and not leave earlier than he planned.

“This is where I want to be,” Harsin said. “This is what I want to do. That’s why I came here. I didn’t come here to fail. We’ve got to build something, and right now I feel like when you hear some of these things, that there’s a lot of things building against me.

“Certainly, I’m the right man for the job. There’s no doubt about it. No one is going to have a better plan than I do, but we’ve got to change some things. This place is not going to be a championship program until we change some things. You’ve got to let the head coach be the head coach and support him.”

This recruiting period, Auburn had the No. 18 recruiting class this year and the No. 8 class in the SEC, according to the On3 Consensus Team Rankings.