Fox Sports' Joel Klatt believes Deion Sanders will be the next head coach at Auburn
It's September, and speculation surrounding Auburn's head coach is already starting to arise in college football conversations across the country.
All of this, and yet nobody has been fired yet.
Fox Sports analyst and color commentator Joel Klatt joined The Next Round on Monday morning and immediately dove into his thoughts on Auburn and their head coach.
According to Klatt, current head coach Bryan Harsin will be gone soon, and there's one coach in particular that would be a fit for the Tigers.
"Bryan (Harsin) is not going to be there next year," Klatt said. "Auburn is clearly lost, and still needs to bottom out. I still think that (Auburn) is going probably going to get a Deion Sanders as a head coach - that's from miles away. I don't know from a local perspective if that's been even talked about."
"When I look at Auburn, the only way to get to where they expect to be is to win some recruiting battles. Think of the coaches they have got to compete with to win some of those recruiting battles, it's going to be very difficult. To me, that's the first and foremost criteria for your next coach at Auburn - can you go into any living room in America and win recruiting battles? And to me, that's Deion Sanders. That's why I think Deion is going to be the next coach at Auburn."
Jackson State coach Deion Sanders works the game against Grambling State during an NCAA college football game in Jackson, Miss., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022.
© Barbara Gauntt/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK
What about Georgia Tech? The Yellow Jackets just recently fired their head coach - wouldn't Tech be a better spot for Sanders, considering the fertile recruiting grounds and the fact that its home for Deion?
Jim Dunaway of The Next Round pointed out to Klatt that Tech has more recruiting restrictions than the Tigers do, and on top of that, there's nowhere near as much history there. Auburn offers a bigger opportunity, right?
"I would think," Klatt said. "I don't know what the SEC will do as far as schedule goes. I think that is interesting as far as are you going to have to be in the SEC West? Who would be in (Auburn's) pod? So there are inherent struggles there, but Georgia Tech is in a similar predicament. While not in the same conference, you still have to recruit against Kirby (Smart) and Georgia, and they're not going anywhere. I think that's a really tough job - you could make an argument though - in the age of the expanded playoff, would it be easier to get to the playoff at Georgia Tech, or at Auburn?"
Joel Klatt isn't the only reporter to have thrown Deion Sanders' name out in relation to the Auburn job. Andy Staples of the Athletic believes that Auburn would be the best fit for Sanders if he wanted to move up to a Power Five school.
"Sanders checks the one box the next Auburn coach will need to check: He's capable of winning recruiting battles against Nick Saban and Kirby Smart," Staples wrote in a recent article.
Klatt quickly noted in his interview that his prediction is with no inside information and that whether or no the Tigers are looking at Sanders as a potential hire is "purely speculative."
It sounds speculative, considering the current coach hasn't even been fired yet.
However, the consensus on Bryan Harsin is that he will in fact be gone before the end of the season. After defeating Missouri in a wild 17-14 overtime homecoming last Saturday, the fuel on Harsin's fire only increased. The Tigers should have lost the game twice - putting them at 2-2 on the season - but they didn't. They're 1-0 in the SEC with a huge matchup against LSU in Jordan-Hare this weekend.
Should Auburn lose that game, there will still be speculation about whether or not Harsin would immediately be let go.
Jackson State head football coach Deion Sanders works with the Tigers during warmup before an NCAA college football game against Grambling State in Jackson, Miss., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022.
© Barbara Gauntt/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK
Bruce Feldman of The Athletic reported Saturday morning that if Harsin lost to Missouri, he would be fired immediately following.
“If they get beat today by Missouri, I’m told there’s a really good chance that they could pull the plug on him as early as tomorrow,” Feldman said. “It has felt like a real inevitability that he will get let go at some point this year, but that feels like now it’s got ramped up.”
Somehow, Auburn won. Harsin currently has his job. At this point, a midseason firing after a loss may make sense for the Tigers. Josh Pate of 247 Sports recently shared his thoughts on the collective minds at Auburn, and why if Feldman's reports are true, things behind the scenes are just as twisted as we assumed.
"I can't even begin to describe how stupid this is," Pate said on his show The Late Kick. "I don't doubt that (the reports were true)... But Auburn won. Is (Harsin) any different a coach? No he's not."
"Eventually you've got Georgia on the schedule, eventually you've got Texas A&M and Alabama, so it'll take care of itself... If those people making this decision really are dumb enough to tie a singular result to the decision, those are the same people that are going to make the decision as to who's going to be your next head coach. Does that sound like a train of thought - does that sound like a strategy, does that sound like a collective group think that you trust to be attached to deciding who's going to lead your program? My answer would be no."
We'll find out a lot about this season, whether or not Harsin gets the boot, and who would be true candidates for the job following this weekend.
Auburn kicks off against LSU this Saturday at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN.
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