Bo Nix weighs in on Auburn firing assistant coach after four games

Make no mistake: first-year Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin is not shy when it comes to decision-making. Through just four games as the Tigers head coach, Harsin has benched his quarterback Bo Nix — a former five-star recruit and three-year starter — in favor of a transfer, and he’s fired an assistant coach in wide receivers coach Cornelius Williams.

Nix, the quarterback benched in favor of LSU transfer T.J. Finley, seemed surprised by Harsin’s decision to fire a coach after just four games. After all, the move came less than 24 hours after Auburn’s come-from-behind 34-24 win over Georgia State on Saturday.

“’Coach [Cornelius Williams] did a good job and we liked having him around,” Nix said of Auburn’s former wide receivers coach. “Unfortunately, Coach [Harsin] decided to go another way. I don’t know what’s going on, but Coach Harsin did have us and tell us as a team. I think the team was shocked, but that’s what Coach wants to do. We as a team and as players are supposed to have Coach Harsin’s back and if he thinks that’s what’s best, we’ll continue to move forward, but I do hate it for Coach Williams.”

Nix knows as well as anyone that college football is a results-driven business. He learned that early in life, when his father — former Auburn quarterback Patrick Nix — was fired after a two-season stint as Miami’s offensive coordinator.

“Unfortunately, in college football, there’s a fine line basis between winning and losing,” Nix said. “When things like this are presented to our team, unfortunately, things like this happen. My dad has been in that spot, to where he’s gotten the call that’s he been fired when I was eight years old, he was at Miami, he was fired. That was tough.  It was tough for him.  It was tough for my family, because unfortunately, our personal lives are put on blast on ESPN.”

Auburn’s wide receiving corps was far from perfect under Williams, though he had coached for just a month of regular-season play. Senior wide receiver Shedrick Jackson scored the go-ahead touchdown for Auburn with 45 seconds left in Saturday’s contest, but Harsin has been critical of the wide receiving play to-date.

No Auburn receiver eclipsed 13 receptions in the first four games. Nix’s four favorite targets were Kobe Hudson, Jackson, Demetris Robertson and John Samuel Shenker — but Shenker is a tight end. Hudson, Jackson and Shenker had 13 receptions but none of the three eclipsed 200 yards receiving.

Williams was hired as Auburn’s wide receiving coach on Jan. 16, a part of Harsin’s inaugural Auburn staff. He had previously spent the last six seasons in the same role at Troy.

Williams signed a two-year contract with Auburn that pays $300,000 annually, according to Auburn Live’s Justin Hokanson. Auburn will owe him the remaining value of his contract unless he accepts a new job before the contract expires.