Bryan Harsin hints at Auburn personnel change in Iron Bowl

When Bryan Harsin was hired by Auburn last December, he knew exactly what the expectation would be.

Not only did Auburn fans hope he could lead the Tigers to a new chapter of success, but there’s one task — one game — in which fans expect Auburn to be competitive, if not win, year in and year out: the Iron Bowl.

“I’ll say this: the first question I was asked after I did my press conference on Christmas eve was about the Iron Bowl,” Harsin said Monday. “Which I think, at that time, was about 340 days away.

“That made it very clear how important this is.”

Harsin is now just days away from the Iron Bowl, an annual rivalry between Auburn and Alabama, but the Tigers are heavy underdogs in this year’s edition, despite hosting the contest. And perhaps rightfully so, with Auburn having dropped three consecutive games heading into Saturday. Alabama will provide a tough task for the slumping Tigers, and as such, Harsin on Monday suggested that Auburn may have one trick up its sleeve in changing personnel.

“I don’t have an answer on you for the redshirt freshmen yet, as far as that goes. But you’re right as far as having guys available to play,” Harsin said, suggesting that there’s a chance for some freshmen — particularly, those who have hardly played and can appear Saturday while preserving their redshirt — to take the field in the Iron Bowl.

“There’s opportunities for that (redshirts to appear),” Harsin said. “We’ll see how the week goes. As far as the Iron Bowl goes, I told the players: I’m excited to coach in this game. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to be at Auburn.”

In the past several weeks, Auburn lost to Texas A&M 20-3, then to Mississippi State 43-34 and most recently, the Tigers suffered a brutal 21-17 loss to South Carolina, which made the Gamecocks bowl eligible. Along the way, Auburn lost starting quarterback Bo Nix to a season-ending ankle injury against Mississippi State, so TJ Finley will again be called on to recover from a poor showing last week.

Auburn’s record is just 6-5, and Alabama opened up as a 19-point favorite over its in-state foe. Perhaps some fresh legs might propel Auburn in the right direction heading into Harsin’s first Iron Bowl, and the redshirt freshman — at least, those who have still played under the minimum required to maintain a redshirt year — could help buck the trend.

“The message is that we have to do things better than we did the week before,” Harsin said. “That’s been the message each and every week. And it’s a matter of — we can talk about it, but we have to go out there and do it. And everybody that steps on that field, everybody that coaches in that game has responsibility to this team to make sure that we are doing everything we can to the best of our ability to have ourselves ready to play.”