Bryan Harsin confident kicker Anders Carlson will be cleared to play in Auburn’s season opener

The on-field product wasn’t the only thing that fell apart during Bryan Harsin’s disastrous tenure at Auburn. The Tigers’ recruiting efforts were well behind those of their peers and biggest rivals. At the time of Harsin’s firing on Halloween, Auburn’s 2023 recruiting class was ranked 55th in...

J’Marion Burnette stood underneath Jordan-Hare Stadium, a few steps from the Auburn football locker room, and scanned his surroundings. His Andalusia Bulldogs had just won its first state title in over 40 years and Burnette’s running ability was a large reason why. In the championship on Dec. 2 though, Burnette was sidelined with a concussion suffered in the third round of the playoffs. He felt proud with his teammates, saying it’s “something that we did and it can’t be taken away,” but it was also important that Burnette retain his senior year to defend it on the field.

Two weeks after Zac Etheridge announced he was “here to stay” as one of Auburn’s assistant coaches, two of his top players from last fall followed suit. D.J. James announced his decision to return for a second season with the Tigers on New Year’s Eve, while fellow cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett did the same two days later. The decisions by James and Pritchett weren’t entirely unexpected — the two had ongoing conversations with Etheridge and the rest of the staff since the season ended — but they marked considerable offseason wins for new Auburn coach Hugh Freeze and his staff heading into Year 1.

The second annual Nick Saban Legacy Award show honored two lifers Tuesday night in Birmingham. Both honorees, Bill Snyder and Vince Dooley, spent their entire college head coaching careers at a single stop. Snyder famously built Kansas State from the worst major college program to a powerhouse while Dooley won the 1980 national title during his 25-year reign at Georgia.

A year after Auburn’s athletics department operated at a deficit for the first time since the 2013-14 fiscal year, the program experienced a major financial bounceback. Auburn athletics reported record revenue and profit numbers for the 2021-22 fiscal year, according to a copy of the department’s annual NCAA financial report obtained Tuesday by AL.com through an open-records request. Auburn reported an operating revenue of $174,568,422 against an operating cost of $151,590,763 during the last fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2022.

The NFL combine begins in less than three weeks, and no school will have more players in Indianapolis this year than Alabama. The Tide had 13 players invited to the 2023 combine, the league announced Wednesday. That topped Georgia, which had 12 this year after the Bulldogs led the nation last year with 14 invites.

Auburn rejected Kevin Steele as its football coach, and now he’s back to haunt the Tigers for that decision as Alabama’s defensive coordinator. Auburn fired Bryan Harsin to hire Saban’s old coaching kryptonite, Hugh Freeze. Spicy. The only thing that could make this soap opera of a...

Auburn’s frontcourt could be shorthanded again when the team travels to College Station, Texas, for Tuesday night’s matchup with Texas A&M. The status of backup center Dylan Cardwell remains uncertain for the Tigers as of Monday afternoon, according to head coach Bruce Pearl. Cardwell is dealing with an undisclosed illness and did not travel with Auburn to Knoxville, Tenn., last weekend for the team’s matchup with Tennessee.

The Auburn Tigers travel to face the Texas A&M Aggies on Tuesday, Feb. 7. The game will be live streamed on fuboTV (free trial). The Tigers have fallen out of the top 25 after Josiah-Jordan James tallied 15 points and 14 rebounds to lead No. 2 Tennessee 46-43 over then-No. 25 Auburn in a game where every point was seemingly difficult and nothing flowed.

Huntsville City Schools has responded to recent incidents of guns being found on campus by bringing in a new security system. A family has received a $2.7 million settlment after a Montgomery, Alabama, man was killed by exploding shrapnel from a defective airbag system. A Naval ship is coming for...

Auburn will extend its streak of having at least one player on the field in the Super Bowl to eight years on Sunday. Although the Tigers’ representatives are reserve offensive linemen, Jack Driscoll of the Philadelphia Eagles and Prince Tega Wanogho of the Kansas City Chiefs have played in every game this season. They played together as Auburn’s starting tackles in the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

Despite a court ruling suggesting that Montgomery police used excessive force, and despite the family’s call for the body camera footage to be made public, the four-year-old video of a police dog biting and killing a Black man remains private. A federal judge last week denied immunity for Montgomery...

Almost 50 years after its first restaurant opened, Tuscaloosa’s Taco Casa is looking to expand the franchise in the Huntsville, Montgomery and Mobile metro areas. The Tex-Mex eatery, which has seven locations in west and central Alabama, is seeking “franchisees who are dedicated, motivated, and have a passion for providing excellent customer service.”

Alabama already has the nation’s best city to live in. Now you can vote to make another town the best in the South. Alexander City has been nominated as Best Small Southern Town by USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice 2023 and winners are determined by an online vote. Alexander City is the only Alabama city among the 20 nominees – which include towns and cities from Texas to Florida to Virginia.

The Auburn University family is celebrating after one of its directors received a prestigious award from the Federal Aviation Administration. On Jan. 27, Auburn leadership and community gathered to celebrate School of Aviation Director James Witte after he received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. The award is the FAA’s...

A Phenix City man was reportedly killed over the weekend in a drive-by shooting Saturday afternoon. No suspects were in custody as of Monday, but police are seeking to identify a car that was in the area during the shooting that killed 22-year-old Daeqwon Mackey, Phenix City police told WVTM.

A 34-year-old man was killed in a weekend shooting in Sylacauga. Sylacauga police on Sunday responded to reports of shots fired in the Drew Court Housing Complex. They arrived to find a man unresponsive in the front yard of 189 Sherwood Drive, said Lt. Willis Whatley. Officers began CPR on...

Southern Company has announced a new chief financial officer for Alabama Power as part of a second round of executive appointments announced this year. Montgomery native Moses Feagin, currently serving as senior vice president, treasurer and CFO at Mississippi Power, will become Alabama Power’s CFO March 1. Last month,...

A Sunday night shooting in Montgomery left one man dead and another behind bars. Montgomery police and fire medics responded at 9:30 p.m. to the 3200 block of Eastern Boulevard on a report of a person shot, said Maj. Saba Coleman. They arrived to find 25-year-old Akhil Sai Mahankali suffering...

The family of a Montgomery man killed in a 2022 auto crash has received a $2.7 million settlement over defective airbags they say led to his death. Beasley Allen and The Vance Law Firm represented the family of Tocarious Johnson, who died June 6, 2022 in a Montgomery crash. The family sued Chrysler, the auto dealer and a maintenance firm.