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Stop me if you've heard this before, but ESPN, they came at Auburn again.
Or at least try to.
Freezing temperatures are likely for several hours inland and a few hours closer to the coast.
Yes.
You are locked on Auburn, your daily podcast on Auburn Tiger.
Part of the locked on podcast network, your team every day.
Yes.
We'll come on in to locked on Auburn, your daily Auburn Tigers podcast.
I'm your host Zach Blackerby.
Thank you so much for making a lock on Auburn, your first listen every single day.
The every day is no.
That Darrell Daprich is the man, the myth, the legend Montgomery radio vet hanging out with
us on this Friday.
Darrell, when I woke up yesterday morning, reading a feature on ESPN about Brian Harson and
the narrative trying to make us feel bad for this man that was gifted.
I'm sorry, stole millions and millions of dollars from Auburn University.
That was not on my bingo card.
Mine neither.
I was shocked that they were doing an article.
I mean, I guess my point is the irrelevancy of it, you know, months afterwards, ESPN didn't
seem so interested in reaching out and finding out why Harson failed so miserably at Auburn.
Being an expoza or an investigative journalism, talking to Derek Mason, Mike Bobo, high school
coaches, maybe some players, a lot of people would have given some honest answers to why
the Harson tenure failed.
And yet ESPN continues to be a mouthpiece for him.
It's like they pump him up and they, you know, it happened when he was in Mexico, the
article that came out when there was rumors of that February, what was going on for whatever
reason, and that's what's so frustrating about that level of journalism, is this guy was
a total clown show the last three months that he was at Auburn.
He didn't recruit.
He stayed in his office.
He wouldn't talk to recruits.
Why don't they talk to some of the recruits that he wouldn't even come out of his office
to talk to on visits?
You don't think those kids felt slided?
Talk to them.
It's ridiculous.
And talking to former players, like just the lack of interest and just the total divide
between the players and him, it's wild.
But ESPN, Chris Lowe yesterday, put out a story.
And I think the attempt was to paint Brian Harson as a victim, as this kind of, you know,
Auburn's this big, bad wolf that just wants to pay coaches to go away.
And, you know, they've had now three head football coaches and four seasons.
And, you know, they just don't know what to do with Brian Harson.
He got all this money.
He's been through so, so much, but he's back home and Boise with his beautiful family.
Right.
That's what Chris Lowe wrote yesterday, which, like you said, they leave out everything.
They leave out the fact that on recruiting trips, the position coaches and the recruiters
would have to bring the player to his office.
And there would also be instances where there'd be several situations where the kid would
want to meet with Harson and be like, yeah, he's already gone home.
Like, sorry, you don't get to talk to the head coach.
You were not awarded that honor.
It's just a ridiculous slant.
And I think Chris Lowe, just when I read it, we're going to kind of delve into some of
the deeper parts of this in a second, but just big picture with the story.
His attempt of a hit piece by Chris Lowe is it seems like he got halfway through of trying
to like paint this picture about how Auburn's the bad guy.
I'm like, it's kind of like he ran out of ammo.
And so like this last half of the article is just, I'm just going to put a lot of quotes
from Brian Harson in here.
Very good point.
And it's really interesting is like he wanted to go with a certain agenda, in my opinion,
just like Mark Schlebock, Pat Forde, which by the way, pronounce your name right like
it spelled.
You're not called by saying four day.
Where Joe, all these people that just go at Auburn for the sake of going out, Auburn,
like it's cool or it's hip.
Here's the thing.
One of the most disingenuous parts of the article is when Brian Harson blames his recruiting
struggles with starting behind the quote, eight ball because of COVID.
I get that he couldn't go on visits, right?
Sure.
But the last two years we weren't locked down.
And he still didn't, I mean, there was no, you know, stay at home order or, you know,
all the stuff that we were supposed to do when he was sitting in his office on his computer
and kids couldn't get to him.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the part that just there was no pushback and it drives me crazy when there's
only one thing presented and not all that that's in itself is just a small microcosm
of the problem.
He blames COVID, but then doesn't go out and do anything when, when COVID and the lockdowns
and all those are lifted and he can go unlimited visits.
Where's he at?
Watching his son play a high school football at Auburn, not visiting high school coaches,
not bringing in.
I mean, that, what was it?
The senior day or the junior day, that fiasco where there was hardly any kids that came.
Who's to blame for that?
The person is and because of his lack of, you know, charisma and connecting with these
kids and high school coaches, again, ask Derek Mason, ask some of the players, ask some
of the recruits parents that he absolutely big time and, you know, just did not just
blew off when they came.
And that frustrating is it is, it gets painted a certain way and he failed on every level,
period.
Yeah, according to the story, he couldn't even get the zoom call to work.
And the interview, which he had Charlie five's internet connection and the screen went blank.
It's what I'm hearing.
The only difference was he did not button his top button, but he apparently him and Charlie
five shared the same internet Wi Fi connection and it goes blank and he goes out and talks
to, I mean, it makes him look like such a joke goes out and talks to his wife and goes,
well, I just kept talking.
I don't know how it went because the screen went black.
And I don't, you know, the fact that he said he didn't, I get it.
He didn't sell his house, but then he talks about how he sold his house in Auburn, didn't
sell the house in Boise sold his house in Auburn and it came as is with all the furniture.
Well, yeah, there's a lot of baggage that came with that house to to pal.
Nice, nice.
But the quick thing about like the interview, that, I mean, he wasn't mentioned really,
like that almost makes Alan Green look worse, right?
Where it's like, what?
You didn't set up a situation to like actually proper.
And that was the second interview.
The first formal interview was in a freaking hot tub, apparently.
So the zoom interview was a member by the way.
Of course, he doesn't remember because, you know, alcohol and high temperatures in jacuzzi
sometimes mixed with the brain.
Here's the thing.
It's frustrating.
I wanted to put this to bed.
I didn't want to pile on and talk about Brian Harson because we're in a new era, right?
It is what it is.
I'm glad you said that.
But this article forces you to have to talk about it because the unfair hit job on it
and how one sided it is because we wouldn't be talking about Brian Harson right now going
into, you know, the summer.
It is what it is.
It's over with.
It's a chapter that's closed.
But when these articles come up and they paint him as a sympathetic figure and there's
no accountability for him being the one that sank the ship, it's frustrating.
I'm not going to lay all the boy.
I mean, you know, from the only thing that I would say the end of 2021 when Nick's broke
his ankle, Auburn was on an upward ascent and they were playing well.
And I think that changed the whole complexion of the season.
But then he did some really brain dead things after that in games, South Carolina and all
the in Alabama, that kind of thing.
So there's just, there's so much that he needs to look in the mirror about and he won't.
And then, you know, and again, I've never ever, ever condoned and you were one of the
first people to come out and discord and everything.
And I commend you for that.
When people, we got personal with this family.
Okay.
That's, that's a line you don't ever want to cross.
We all have daughters.
Okay.
And the stuff about his family and all that taking it to personal in February.
But there's enough there that you don't have to.
No, you can make it all about his professional works.
It leaves a lot to be desired.
But the way, you know, low and ESPN frame it is he was cut off at the knees.
And it's like, I don't think so.
All right.
There's a few things in this that I really, really want to highlight, Daryl.
We will do that in just a moment right here on locked on Auburn.
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Daryl, you touched on this and before we jump on anymore, be sure to tune into the show
tomorrow, Saturday, Daryl and I will be dropping a basketball special episode kind of recapping
the last few weeks for Auburn basketball.
A lot of you guys have asked for that.
So we will deliver on that.
That'll be up Saturday morning tomorrow morning for most of you guys.
Listen to this.
But I'm with you, Daryl.
Like I don't want to bring up Brian Harson, but like you said, this article comes in Auburn
in a way.
And so I think we need to address it.
So I think the most shocking part of this to me was when he's referring to his time with
coach Peterson when he was at Boise, right?
And he says, this is a quote from Harson in the story.
I used to tell Pete, wouldn't it be awesome if coaches could take a year like a sabbatical
and go out there and see other things and get a different perspective on stuff.
Peterson response was always the same.
Yeah, that's called getting fired.
And to me, this is one of the many tone deaf things that he has said because like who in
the real world can just take a year off?
Like that's just not how it works, brother.
And this is like a dude that's doing an interview that's received millions and millions and millions
of dollars for doing a terrible job so bad where they were like, okay, it's worth paying
you millions and millions and millions of dollars for you to just go away.
I mean, the tone like just absolutely tone deaf and unaware of how real life works.
You want to pull back the curtain and get an introspective look at why Brian Harson is
who he is and why he failed at Auburn, that paragraph puts it in a nutshell.
He is more concerned and focusing on taking time off than putting in the work that it
takes to do what you need to do to have a championship program.
And I mean, you don't have to look any further than the madman, workaholic man, you freeze
what he did, who has balance in his life.
But you know, got after it, saw what he had to do and just was a madman to complete the
task.
Harson's more concerned about, you know, philosophical, retrospective, taking a year off, talking
to different coaches and getting their feedback, then rolling up your freaking sleeves for
somebody that works on drag racers and cars, he sure doesn't want to roll up his sleeves
and get after it.
It's just such a contradiction with him.
He wants the toys, but he wants the benefits and he wants the glory.
But all this stuff that was really, I guess what I perceive him to look like beneath him
and let this assistant do it or let this assist, oh, let's talk ball, let's just talk
ball.
There's just always an excuse and no accountability in looking at that one snapshot and saying,
wouldn't it be nice to take a year off?
Well, yeah, it'd be nice for all of us to take a year off.
It doesn't work that way in the real world when you're trying.
You think saving and Kirby smart are taking a year off.
I mean, that's him right there.
Yeah, I mean, that level of coach, and I think you need that mindset to deserve a job
in the SEC, at least the top half job in the SEC, which Auburn is.
Those are the guys that went to championship and then they're working on the recruiting
class the next morning.
That's just who they are.
It's how they're wired, borderline psychopathic.
I mean, they just go after it.
They're obsessed.
I think it's what Auburn got in Hugh Freeze, which is good.
Another part of the story that I loved, it's the second to last paragraph.
Carson isn't in the business of giving advice.
We can spend some time on just that if we wanted to, but he's more convinced than ever
that complete alignment from the president to the board of trustees to the athletic director
is critical to make consistently in the SEC, especially when you're playing Alabama and
Georgia every year.
And it's like, well, duh.
I mean, I agree with that and everybody else does.
I mean, when I say that, Auburn fans have been saying that for years about getting everybody
on the same page and not pulling against each other and not using your own agendas.
Why didn't he try to do that?
Well, because that would have taken effort.
That would have taken effort and that would have taken him to come back from Mexico to
do that.
So that's the problem is that those kinds of things, look, I get it.
Sometimes you go with one hand behind your back because there is this tug of war in this
pool with, you know, everybody wanting their own thing, their own wishes, you know, granted
in their own agendas.
But at the end of the day, if you have a strong enough personality and enough vision and you're
out working everybody, you can pull people together.
Right.
Bruce Pearl did it.
I mean, but Johnson did it.
So I mean, you try to tell me that a football coach, Tommy Tubberville, to a certain extent,
did it after that whole jetgate thing.
He said, that's it.
We're going to do it my way.
Everyone's going to be on the same page.
And he still did it.
He didn't complain and cry like a little baby about it.
I mean, nobody got undermined more than Tommy Tubberville when your boss is on a plane
trying to fire you and hire somebody else.
And what did he do?
He sucked it up like a man and went undefeated the next year and didn't cry and complain.
Right.
Right.
And then the part about Harston isn't in the business of giving advice.
Like, well, to his quarterbacks, apparently, he never did.
That's for sure.
I mean, this is a dude that like, it kind of seems like he wants to be a motivational speaker.
Like, you know, the whole like podcast thing.
And then if you look at his Twitter, it's all quotes and some of them are from him himself,
like talking about like seizing the day and things like that.
It's like, no, I don't think so.
It's smoking mirrors and no substance.
That's what it is, Zach.
It's saying the right things and presenting the right image with, you know, and all that
and quote, quoting things that look on the surface to be great.
But when you peel back the onion and you look at the surface and you get down to earth
with it, there's no substance there.
Yeah.
And then the last quote of the article, but we don't want him.
This is Harston, but we don't want to make that our problem any longer.
That's Auburn's problem.
We've moved on and being home has never felt better.
Well, somebody on Twitter said that and I wish you remember who it was.
He said, I'm happy for Harston and I'm even happier that he's gone.
Yeah.
I mean, look, the real test will come.
There's been a couple of things he's done since he's been fired where he's thrown a
little shade on Twitter, you know, done some things.
And he did that as a, like remember, he did that as the coach when he would sub-tweet
players and do things that were just beneath a head football coach.
Okay.
And he did it to Bonix.
I don't care what anybody says.
Let's be honest and let's be real.
He did some things to sub-tweet Bonix and then he gives us, yeah.
Oh yeah.
He did some things about what he said.
It was right after Nick's left and it was certain things about commitment and those kinds
of everybody.
It was very obvious and our listeners in the comments and YouTube and all that.
Remember what I'm talking about.
We're like, okay.
He's just being obviously sub-tweeting both Bonix.
Well, he does that.
And then he, and then his son takes a trip to Oregon, which is very interesting to me.
And he takes a picture with Nick's, Lowe puts that in the article, but why don't you go
talk to Pat Nick's about why Bonix left?
Yeah, it's weird that he left to go away from him.
Why don't we do that?
Why don't we do a follow-up question, Chris Lowe?
I mean, that's just, that's the thing.
And Bonix was the bigger person and took the picture and smiled and did all that kind of
stuff and I commend him for that.
But look, that's the thing.
Things get swept under the rug and get forgotten and don't get addressed and it drives me crazy
when it's a false narrative.
And that's what this low article is.
It's been pretty telling that all the folks on the beat, the folks that I really, really
respect that cover the program better than anybody and no way more than they could ever
write a report about, the fact that their response to all this as well is just, it's
a joke.
It's an absolute joke.
But, Daryl, this article has given me, it's reminded me of a perspective that I think we
need to have.
And I want to share that in just a moment.
Right here on Lockdown Auburn.
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Ladies and gentlemen of South Florida, can you believe it?
And Los Angeles Lakers fans are strapping in for a roller coaster ride of an offseason.
I mean if you jettison every player who has a bad final series before you're eliminated
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When I told you to join the Lockdown Auburn Discord, it is free.
I have to just click the link in the episode description down below and days like yesterday
where articles like this come out, it's really fun to just kind of go through it together.
So be sure to join that if you want to join.
We're getting close to 2000 Auburn fans in there, which is pretty stinking cool.
I think I've forgotten how bad some of this was.
The Brian Harson era, because thankfully it was short.
But while we were in it, it was just like, when is this going to end?
But we talk about starting behind the eight ball and getting, you know, cut off at the
knees and all that.
And like Hugh Freeze's situation he took over was way worse than Brian Harson's, significantly
worse than Brian Harson's.
And you talk about a dude who's going to roll up his sleeves and work.
What does Hugh Freeze do when he acquires one of the worst rosters in the SEC?
He flips it.
He flips it.
The perfect thing to do is slept for more than two hours a night since he's been the Auburn's
head coach.
But what he's done is absolutely, it's absolutely incredible.
And so I just think it's important to kind of have the perspective once again as we look
back because we've just kind of covered it day by day as we've slowly added these 20
plus players that are going to be new guys on this 2023 roster.
But now that we're at the end of it, looking back and just thinking like, wow, like the
last six months, like you talk about flipping the roster, we've really flipped the program.
Man, that's a good point because there were two things that Harson had at his disposal
that Hugh Freeze, you know, did not.
Well, one thing Freeze didn't have one thing he did.
First of all, Brian Harson inherited a much better roster.
Yes.
Think about the defense that he, you know, I mean, with, with wooden and, and haul and
those guys and the linebackers in the secondary and then he had Bonix.
Take a big, big big big.
Yep.
And he definitely had a better roster than he inherited.
And then he also did have the transfer portal at his disposal his first year.
I believe that's when the transfer portal came into effect 2021.
He didn't utilize it as much as he should have.
I mean, he got Demetrius Robertson and Eko Leota and some of those guys.
But at the end of the day, he didn't do what he should have done and go out and address
similar weaknesses to bolster the roster that was already good, not great coming back.
If he could have given Bonix some offensive lineman, remember, that's the area that was
brutal and Harson chose not to address it.
And Nick's was running for his life.
Maybe he doesn't get his ankle broke.
If he has someone to bring up block form, same thing with receivers.
He really didn't have anybody to catch the ball downfield for Demetrius Robertson was
okay.
And Hudson, you know, was decent.
But other than that, it just wasn't, it wasn't there.
You've reached.
Cusley Hudson wasn't a natural wide receiver.
He wasn't a natural wide receiver and he just didn't get the ball enough and ran a reverse
and he dropped it.
Right.
And he was, I don't know what that is.
Dang, I forgot about that too.
That was rough.
You freeze didn't, that was, you freeze didn't suppress that.
Why did you sit?
I'm legitimately mad right now.
And then the, the, the fade pattern in the end zone on third and one where you got tank
bigs me in the backfield twice.
Remember?
That was beautiful.
Um, but yeah, it's everybody else's fault.
Chris Lowe, thanks.
But he didn't, you freeze didn't get the roster.
If you freeze would have inherited the roster that Harson did in 2021 and then built around
that roster like he does with the portal, I remember what he competed for a West championship
in 2021 with bone X healthy and that offense and you freeze would have got some dogs at
receiver.
You know, he would have and he'd have got some guys up front with the page.
It would have been easy, right?
Like, both makes is good.
Like, so how would he need exactly with that defense too?
He'd be, I mean, that would have that Alabama game would have been completely different.
It's just a lot to look forward to in glad clown shows and the rear view mirror, but still
it's frustrating.
Maybe run the ball in the fourth quarter in the iron ball.
Like that would have been nice.
You freeze would have done whatever it took to get that dub.
And if that meant putting somebody in that can run on fourth and one, even if, you know,
if it wasn't tank big, first of all, he wouldn't have given him the ball five yards in the
backfield and a slow developing play hand off.
That's not true.
You know, there's just a lot of different things you can look at.
But again, it's everybody else's fault, right?
I mean, I mean, again, remember what he did in the coaches meetings or some of the things
that came out after the fact with Derek Mason and Mike Bobo and, you know, going in there.
And I mean, it's just all that's it.
Lows disposal if he would have chose.
If you're going to do an article, a follow up, then do the article.
Yeah.
You know who he should have talked to was Austin Davis.
Oh, yeah.
Well, the office of coordinator for two weeks and then he's like, no, I can't do it.
No, I mean, he saw what he saw and said, can't do it.
I mean, and then everybody else that got on his staff was just, you know, as we called
him, the potato gang, just people that that he felt comfortable with.
I mean, he couldn't get no seed.
He liked take the job.
No, it was like, okay, I guess I'll get this.
I guess I'll get Eric key south and just promote him.
And then schmedding, you know, we were defensive coordinator.
So I actually think schmedding was the best of the potato posse.
Dude, I want to remove him from the rest of them.
Yeah.
I thought schmedding was fine.
Who's the, who's the offensive line coach that took over as offensive coordinator?
Will.
Uh, oh yeah.
Yeah.
Well, friend, I like he was in his bag.
The last three games of the season and calls some good games for what he had to work with.
He really did.
I, I went back and looked at some of the things he did against Texas, saying, and even then
they didn't score a lot of points and yeah, Western Kentucky and even Alabama.
He, he did, he got everything, every, every, how he could out of an anemic offense at
that point.
That's a good point.
And just a broken team and then, you know, he and Caddy kind of put that together, which
was awesome.
Daryl, how could people check out everything you've got going on, including what we're
going to be talking about tomorrow on the show?
Yeah.
Can't wait.
Uh, dap 6410 on Twitter.
And then we're going to do a little basketball show that'll come out tomorrow that we're going
to talk about the off season roster.
It's going to be fun.
I'm excited for it.
There's a lot of people that have been asking for it.
Yep.
And then on Tuesdays, I'm on the max round table.
Do a little 15 minute segment.
Daryl Daprich always given the people what they want.
Yeah.
Be sure to tune into our show tomorrow.
And in the meantime, you can find on my written work at AuburnDaily.com and we'll see you tomorrow
for a special Saturday morning show right here on lockdown.
Auburn.
And then we'll see you tomorrow.
Yeah.
For the first time in team history, the Denver Nuggets are headed to the NBA finals.
This has to be just like DMO's satisfying, validating playoff run that we could have imagined up
until now for fans of this team.
The Florida Panthers are headed to the Stanley Cup final thanks to yet another game winner
from Matthew Kachuk.
Ladies and gentlemen of South Florida.
And you believe it.
And Los Angeles Lakers fans are strapping in for a roller coaster ride of an offseason.
I mean, if you jettison every player who has a bad final series before you're eliminated
every year, you're in a lot of trouble bringing back a roster from year to year.
For more on all these stories, check out new episodes of Locked on Nuggets, Locked on Panthers
and Locked on Lakers all free and available wherever you get podcasts.
Yes.
you