David Pollack reveals why Kirby Smart didn’t take the Auburn head coaching job

David Pollack said Auburn’s booster influence cost it the chance to hire Kirby Smart, linking those issues to Hugh Freeze’s firing.

College football analyst David Pollack reopens Auburn's old wounds by discussing how the Tigers failed to hire Kirby Smart and how their approach has remained unchanged since then. | Kirsten Fiscus/Advertiser via Imagn Content Services, LLC

Auburn football has entered another rebuild after firing Hugh Freeze, and David Pollack believes the program’s long-running internal issues explain why one of college football’s best coaches never took the job.

On his "See Ball, Get Ball" podcast, Pollack said that Auburn had a real shot at hiring Georgia coach Kirby Smart years ago but lost it due to the overreaching influence of boosters, which remains an issue more than a decade later. “Auburn fans, I think you’ve heard this for a while,” Pollack said. “This is why you don’t have Kirby Smart, by the way, because they had a chance to get Kirby Smart. Auburn fans know this. There’s a tendency in that building for certain people to have a lot of say. And those certain people aren’t necessarily the people that you want to listen to.”

Pollack described the environment as one where donors have too much sway. “If I’m going to a place where those people are making football decisions, which I’m telling you, is the history at Auburn, that’s not a good recipe for success,” he said. “Just because you’re a big-time booster doesn’t mean that I need your input on football. I need you to stay in your lane. Hire a coach that’s got the balls to do his job, to make the shots, to call the calls and do that stuff.”

Lessons Not Learned From Auburn Football's Missed Kirby Smart Opportunity

Smart once interviewed for Auburn’s open head-coaching job in 2012 before the school hired Gus Malzahn. He said at the time that he had promised Nick Saban he would stay at Alabama through the national championship game if he got the offer, but Auburn’s leadership hesitated over letting a coach pull double duty at a rival program. “The others on the search committee were good with it,” Smart told ESPN. “But I don’t think Jay [Jacobs] could ever get past the thought of the Auburn coach coaching at Alabama for another month.”

Pollack’s comments suggest there were deeper issues beyond scheduling conflicts. Auburn’s history of booster involvement and administrative hesitation likely turned Smart away from the role that later became Malzahn’s.

Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart has built something special in Athens, but his talents could have been brought to Auburn football more than a decade ago. | Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Since then, Smart has turned Georgia into a national powerhouse while Auburn has cycled through coaches, paying more than $50 million in buyouts across Gus Malzahn, Bryan Harsin, and Freeze.

Interim coach D.J. Durkin will lead the Tigers this week as Auburn travels to Vanderbilt on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.