Bryan Harsin Thinks He Can “Out Smart” Nick Saban in Recruiting

Kevin Scarbinsky, the director of communications for the CoachSafely Foundation, joined Inside the Locker Room with coaches Wimp and Barry Sanderson for his weekly conversation with the coaches on Tide 100.9 Tuesday morning.

In a conversation that began on the topic of how difficult and time-consuming recruiting has become for the assistant coaches of prominent programs, Scarbinsky ended up offering a lot of insight into how recruiting has played a role in Bryan Harsin’s rapid fall from grace on The Plains.

“Bryan Harsin is still not very welcome at Auburn from some people, some important people. And it’s not just his inability so far to recruit at a high level, but his lack of 100% enthusiasm for recruiting and for getting on the road,” said Scarbinsky.

National Signing Day was February 2, and Harsin’s staff turned up a goose egg, signing zero players. The very next day, allegations surfaced regarding Harsin having an extramarital affair with one of his assistants. These have appeared to be unfounded. Throughout the next week, it seemed that this rumor was drummed up by some of the Auburn athletics boosters in order to fire Harsin for cause and avoid paying his over $18 million buy-out.

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Scarbinsky had a lot to say regarding what the motivations of those boosters may have been, and why they were ready to strike at the drop of a hat.

"Some boosters had a plan to not only change the football coach, they wanted to change the athletic director. Allen Green is basically a lame duck. He won't be there much longer," said Scarbinsky. “They were gonna try to hire a coach who understood the importance of recruiting.”

January 14 was essentially the first day in almost three years that coaches could go out and hit the recruiting trail in person the way they are used to due to the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the last two years. Kirby Smart was flying around the Atlanta metro in a helicopter to visit kids. Nick Saban, too, was up in the air visiting as many players on his list as he could.

“I was told, by people who should know, that Bryan Harsin never left the building,” said Scarbinsky.

It seems wild that a coach who’s new to the SEC, arguably the most competitive conference in all of college athletics in terms of on the field play and recruiting, would not be mirroring the blueprint of Nick Saban, the man who has coached every one of his recruiting classes to a national championship victory in their time at Alabama. Is he delusional?

“He is not personally invested in recruiting the way Nick Saban is and that Kirby Smart is, because, I was told, Bryan Harsin's opinion is that he and his staff can out work and out-smart the likes of Nick Saban and Kirby Smart,” Scarbinsky continued.

Well, maybe, judging by that insider scoop. If Harsin thinks that he can waltz into the SEC as green of a coach as he is and magically start recruiting better than the dominant programs in it, it is plain why zero recruits chose to sign with his program, and it’s even clearer why some of the Auburn boosters are in a rush to get him out of there as quickly as possible. He will likely never lead Auburn to success with this attitude.

Be sure to tune into Inside the Locker Room with Wimp and Barry Sanderson weekday mornings from 7-9 a.m. in order to catch more in-depth insight and analysis.