Bryan Harsin reveals message to Auburn Tigers before first Iron Bowl

Bryan Harsin’s first season as the Auburn Tigers’ head coach has had its fair share of ups and downs.

Auburn in its first two weeks of the season steamrolled past Akron and Alabama State by a 122-10 combined score, slotting the Tigers into the top 25 and starting Harsin’s tenure on a high note. Then, however, Auburn lost to Penn State and beat Georgia State by the skin of its teeth, thanks to a second-half comeback by backup quarterback TJ Finley. There were other highs, too, like wins over ranked teams like Arkansas and Ole Miss, but they didn’t come without the most recent low: a three-game losing streak with losses to Texas A&M, Mississippi State and South Carolina.

Auburn is bowl-eligible, but Harsin losing to South Carolina in its three-game skid makes rivalry week even more important — and Harsin knows the weight it already carries.

“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 of the upcoming game with Alabama. “Which I think, at that time, was about 340 days away.”

Now, the famed Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama — which has generated some of college football’s greatest moments, from the famed kick-six to Cam Newton’s miraculous comeback — is just days away. And Harsin on Monday explained his message to the team ahead of the biggest game of the season.

“As far as the Iron Bowl goes, I told the players this: I’m excited to coach in this game. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to be at Auburn,” Harsin said. “Go back, before I was ever a part of this program, the Iron Bowl has been a game that everybody has watched. Everybody knows Auburn and Alabama are playing. … And now, to be here, I told our players I’m excited to be here and I’m excited to coach in the game. That’s one of the things about being at Auburn that you get the chance to do.

“The message is that we have to do things better than we did the week before,” Harsin continued. “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.”

Auburn’s record is just 6-5, and Alabama opened up as a 19-point favorite over its in-state foe. Perhaps the home crowd might propel Auburn in the right direction heading into Harsin’s first Iron Bowl, as the Tigers will need some sort of help buck the trend and spoil Alabama’s College Football Playoff hopes.