Bryan Harsin gives surprising answer on enduring offseason drama

The most dramatic story of the offseason thus far hasn’t been Caleb Williams jumping to USC, or Spencer Rattler heading to South Carolina, Jaxson Dart moving to Ole Miss, etc. The biggest drama throughout the college football landscape came within the Auburn football program and its head coach, Bryan Harsin.

There was a power struggle within Auburn regarding the athletics department, coaches, boosters, etc. A lot of fans wanted Harsin out of the program, but that wasn’t the ultimate decision. Harsin took the stand Monday afternoon and addressed his feelings on the saga that ultimately saw him stay with the Tigers as their head coach. Now, he just wants to move on and focus about spring practice.

“There was a lot of things that happened. I mean, I don’t I don’t really see the value at this point of looking back in the rearview mirror, you know?” Harsin said. “I mean, I’m a guy that that wants to move forward that wants to get better than wants to keep improving. And that’s just how I operate.”

Obviously Harsin won’t be able to put this directly in the rearview. He’ll be facing the backlash of this internal scandal for the remainder of his Auburn tenure, but Harsin said he believes in what he does and hopes to have that attitude reflect on his team on and off the field.

“As much as there were some negative things, there was probably more positive,” Harsin said. “I saw players on our team step up — and we talk about player driven, like you can talk about it all day and until you’re thrown into that situation, until you have to come out and actually stand on your two feet and say something, you never know.

“I saw players do that. I saw players set up meetings to go meet with people to have conversations about our program, and I saw guys that decided to come back here for that reason — to be in that position. I saw coaches do the same thing.”

Harsin didn’t want to get into specifics about what exactly happened, but kept going back to the point about how much support he received and how his guys stepped up while he was going through everything. Auburn is going to overcome this mess and no matter how many times he and his team get knocked down, they’ll get right back up in time to clear the next hurdle.

It’s going to be a constant battle about what other people say, and that rings true about any program. Harsin just believes it was his turn to have the world turn against him, but knows he has supporters inside and outside of the Auburn program to back him up every step of the way.

“I saw some things that were really, really positive and saw support, and saw people come out and just stand up and talk about Auburn, talk about this program, talk about the things that we’re doing and know that we’re moving in the right direction,” Harsin said.