Former Auburn OC tears apart Bryan Harsin

Former Auburn offensive coordinator Tony Franklin didn’t hold back in his assessment of first-year Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin on The Coach Tony Franklin Podcast.

““You hired a weak man with no backbone who is gonna get run over by all these boosters,” he said.

Franklin went as far to call for Harsin to resign, despite Auburn’s 3-1 start in Harsin’s first year.

“If you want to blame somebody for sucking right now, the way your football team sucks, I got a great idea,” he said. “Instead of firing Cornelius, or whoever the next guy is you’re going to fire, just quit. Just resign.”

Tony Franklin was especially critical of Harsin’s decision to fire first-year wide receivers coach Cornelius Williams just four games into the season.

“Four games in and you crack, and you fire your receivers coach?” he asked. “The best coached group on the field for offense was your receivers. You’re basically firing your receivers coach because your offensive line sucks. Your offensive line is bad.”

Franklin notably coached Cornelius Williams in 2006-2007 when Franklin was offensive coordinator at Troy and Williams was a player. Franklin stated that he loves Williams, but also loves Auburn.

Tony Franklin served as offensive coordinator under head coach Tommy Tuberville at Auburn in 2008. Tuberville and the rest of the coaching staff were fired at the end of the 2008 season.

Franklin stated that he “deserved” to be fired in 2008 and “is good with it.”

He compared Bryan Harsin to Tuberville, even going as far to call the former Boise State head coach “Tommy Tuberville No. 2.”

“The offense and defense are soft,” Franklin said. “They don’t play hard, and they’re not very good or talented. If they played the hardest they could play, you could be a middle-of-the-pack SEC West team. If you don’t get it fixed, I don’t know if you can win a game in the SEC.”

Auburn is 3-1 in Harsin’s first season, opening the year with two dominant wins over Akron and Alabama State. All eyes were on the Bryan Harsin and Auburn in week three as the Tigers played Penn State down to the wire in primetime, eventually losing 28-20. Then, on Saturday, Auburn needed late game heroics from backup quarterback TJ Finley and wide receiver Shedrick Jackson to beat Georgia State 34-24.

Auburn opens conference play on Saturday against LSU with a major unknown as to who will be the starting quarterback for Auburn.

“That has not been decided yet,” Bryan Harsin said on Monday. “I know depth charts come out – depth charts are a little bit old school. So many things change during the week… We’re going to get our QBs prepared today and tomorrow morning.”

Bo Nix has been the starter for Auburn since 2019, but was benched in favor of LSU transfer TJ Finley against Georgia State.

Nix was 13 of 27 passing the ball with 156 yards against Georgia State before being pulled. When Finley took over, he completed nine of his 16 passes for 97 yards and a touchdown. Finley’s touchdown was Auburn’s only offensive touchdown of the game.