Morning reads: Allen Greene, Bryan Harsin talk football program, plus assessing college football coaches' average tenure
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Allen Greene comments on football program
Auburn AD Allen Greene talked about the Tigers’ football program while on the Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network. In particular, Greene talked about the adversity the program went through in the offseason.
“I think they build character, I will tell you our team is closer than they ever have been,” Greene said. “Our coaching staff is closer than they ever have been. And they’re really hungry to go out and represent the Auburn family.”
Other quotes from Greene:
“We weren’t as successful as we should have been last year, and everybody knows that and Coach (Bryan) Harsin knows that.”
“I know he’s engaging with our student athletes, he’s engaging with our coaches and with the fans. Just being more natural in his element.”
Bryan Harsin talks NIL, transfer portal and more
Bryan Harsin recently appeared on Birmingham radio to discuss a variety of topics, including NIL, transfer portal, offseason workouts, state of the program and more.
Here’s some key quotes from Bryan Harsin:
“We probably got to figure out at some point, just with our calendar. But right now, May and June, really important months…”
“You do get a little bit of time off in July, there’s a dead period. So, coaches will go get away for a couple weeks, which will be great. Get away from our guys, let them do their own thing and everybody just take a break. Then we’ll come back, get ready for fall camp and then we’re ready to hit the field again in August. Ready to play.”
“I think getting players on campus, that’s been the goal. As many times as we can, even to the same guy. If we can just get guys on campus, that’s going to help us. So we’ve been really working hard on that.”
“I think one thing when we got here was really about conditioning. It was about getting ourselves in shape and body fat and doing all that. I think our guys are in a better position that way.”
“One area that I think our players have done a much better job of and they’re taking more serious and will continue to keep evolving is the nutrition piece. It’s so huge, you can’t outwork a bad diet. You can go out there and do whatever you want, but if you’re eating like crap it’s not going to help you. So we’re doing a good job of just trying to get everyone more aware and trying to fuel these guys the proper way. When we do that, body fat drops, muscle goes up, they’re faster, they’re thinking better, they’re just more twitchy.”
Bryan Harsin talks NIL, transfer portal
Harsin talks offseason workouts, etc.
College football coaches lasting less than four years
This was a particularly busy offseason for coaching changes, with 29 FBS jobs changing hands. There are 131 FBS jobs (remember that James Madison joins this season), so that means 22 percent of the coaches will be new to their current job this fall, writes Mike Huguenin.
The question: How many are going to last four years? The reason we set four years as the benchmark is that the 131 FBS coaches have been at their current jobs for an average of just 3.7 seasons. The three longest-tenured coaches – Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, Utah’s Kyle Whittingham and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy – have been at their jobs for a total of 57 seasons; that means those three account for 11.7 percent of the total seasons (489 seasons for the 131).
There were 28 new coaches in 2016 and eight remain in those jobs. In 2017, there were 23 new guys and eight remain. There were 21 new coaches in 2018 and 13 already have departed for assorted reasons. And there were 22 changes in 2019 – and eight already are gone three years later.
SEC coaches currently have an average of FOUR seasons of experience at their current school. Here’s what else Huguenin says about the SEC:
The skinny: There are two new coaches, while eight other schools have coaches who have spent three seasons or less at their current job. Just three of the league’s 14 coaches have spent at least six seasons at their current school.
Longest-tenured coach: Alabama’s Nick Saban, heading into his 16th season (his 15 seasons account for 31 percent of the 48 seasons put in by the current SEC coaches at their schools)
Second-longest: Kentucky’s Mark Stoops, going into his 10th
