Auburn football is one of the oldest college programs in the Southeastern Conference. With nearly 800 all time-wins on their resume, they stand as one of the Top 20 college football programs of all time according to Brad Crawford’s 247 sports list and the 13th winningest college football program of all time. However, the 2-time national champions and 16-time conference champions have been slowly falling off the map of the college football world. This is why.

The 2025 Auburn Football season ended with a disappointing 5-7 record, finishing third-to-last in the Conference Standings. This was the fourth straight losing season for the Tigers dating back to 2021. If you have been watching Auburn football for a while, you know this isn’t quite an ideal tenure for the Tigers. The decade prior? 8 seasons with at least 8 total wins, 2 National championship appearances (coming out victorious in one), and 3 SEC championship appearances (coming out victorious in 2). So, what exactly sparked this downfall of Auburn Football?

There’s only one answer. One name to be more specific; is Bryan Harsin.

On December 13, 2020, the Auburn Tigers fired their Head Football Coach, Gus Malzahn, after their 2020 Football season concluded with a disappointing 6-5 record, the worst in his tenure as Auburn’s Head Football Coach. Gus had nearly taken Auburn to the Promise Land multiple times but inevitably came up just short. The fans, university, and athletic director were tired of this. They wanted a change.

Just 9 days after Malzhan was fired, Bryan Harsin was named Auburn’s 28th head football coach on December 22, 2020. Before this, he spent seven seasons as head coach at Boise State, where he won three Mountain West Conference titles. The Fans were optimistic about this decision due to his lack of experience with SEC competition and being able to recruit top talent, especially from the state of Alabama. After the first season, the fans were right, but because it was his first season as the coach and he wasn’t able to technically recruit his own players yet, nobody was that surprised when Auburn finished 6-7 with a loss to Houston in the Birmingham Bowl. The season did however end with 5 straight losses, including blowing a 28-3 lead to Mississippi State in front of a home crowd. This trend continued into the following season when Auburn had a span where they lost 5 in a row again and 6 of their last 8, concluding their 2022 football season with a 5-7 record. This was Auburn’s worst record in a decade and unfortunately, Harsin’s situation didn’t get better for him. Before that season, Auburn had one of the worst recruiting classes in the SEC and only managed to bring in a total of 9 transfers with over 20 players leaving. Therefore, for the fans, there wasn’t much to be excited about in the future for Auburn Football.

Overall, back-to-back losing seasons and terrible recruiting classes aren’t the combinations needed to be a championship-contending team. With multiple coaches leaving the program for other jobs, it looked like Harsin’s time at Auburn was coming to an abrupt end. 2 years after he was hired as the Head Coach, he was soon fired.

This hire was so historically bad for the Auburn program, that the university even fired their Athletic Director Allen Greene soon after. Harsin’s buyout was worth a whopping 15.3 million dollars. Unfortunately for the Tigers, this put them into an even deeper hole. A hole that would be so hard to dig out of, that even the current Coach at Auburn, Hugh Freeze, is struggling to catapult out of.

What’s Next for Auburn?

Hugh Freeze was another unique hire for the Tigers. New AD John Cohen said one of the main reasons he hired him was that he had experience coaching in the SEC and, most importantly, had beaten Nick Saban and Alabama multiple times. One of Auburn’s main struggles during the Harsin Era was on the offensive side of the ball. Fortunately for the fans, Hugh Freeze had one of the best offensive minds in College Football, developing players such as DK Metcalf, AJ Brown, and Malik Willis.

Including the hire of Hugh Freeze, the 5th ranked Transfer Class came in, with a total of 20 commits, hoping to lead the tigers out in the fall of 2023. Unfortunately for the fans, Auburn suffered another losing season at 6-7 following a blowout loss to Maryland in the Music City Bowl. And the following season? 5-7. However, Auburn showed vast improvement and optimism with multiple players (Cam Coleman, Jaylin Crawford, Kaleb Harris) being named to an All-sec freshman team. Fans did start to hesitate on the fact that Hugh Freeze could develop players. The only thing preventing him from not being fired is back-to-back top 10 recruiting classes in the country. Safe to say the bag was being thrown. With that being said, only time will tell if Hugh Freeze can completely rejuvenate this Auburn Football program back to where it was a decade ago.