Bryan Harsin sends message to fans following disappointing first season

In his first season at Auburn, Bryan Harsin matched last season’s win total. But the Tigers coach knows how high the bar is, and a 6-7 season — including a five-game losing streak — isn’t where he wants to be.

The Tigers made a bowl game for the ninth straight year and fell to Houston 17-13 on Tuesday. Prior to the game, Harsin said he wouldn’t assess the season until it was over.

Well, even though the season was over, he still didn’t publicly assess the season. But he has a pretty clear idea of what should come next and conveyed that message to Auburn fans.

“I think teams that have success and organizations that have success, then everything you do matters,” Harsin told reporters. “The way that we prepare, the way that we work, the way that we do things. And I thought we did a really good job of that when I first got here. We had some really good things.

“There was a lot of focus and attention, and as things get easier or you start to win and you have success, you have to make sure you go back to what you were doing that worked. … As far as what those guys in that locker room want, they want to win. They want to win a championship, they want to be a team that goes out there and plays four quarters and has success and fights like we’ve seen these guys fight. They want those things. So we have to do a great job of … [making] that a major part of our program that is consistent. I think the inconsistency showed up more this year than the consistency did.”

Bryan Harsin: ‘We want to win’

Yes, Auburn made a bowl game in Harsin’s first year with the program. But he knows the goal is to do more than play in a bowl game.

The goal is to win — and that’s exactly what he wants to do.

“We want to win, and we want to be successful, and Auburn football should, in my opinion,” Harsin said. “There’s things to clean up, there’s a lot to do, and we’re here to do it. So these next couple days, we’ll reevaluate where we are, we’re going to dive right into recruiting and we’re going to get back together as a staff and we’ll go through, ‘What did we learn.’ … We’ll get Austin Davis here on staff and we’ll have a team meeting on the 11th and we hit the ground running.

“And we’re not going to back down. That’s just the bottom line. We’ve got a lot of work to do and we know where we want to be and the guys that are in our program that are going to be a part of what we’re doing, they’re going to have the same mentality, too. I know they are because there’s a lot of new faces that are going to be sitting in that team room very soon. I know there’s a lot of guys that are coming back that want those things. … This game is disappointing. Once we get back to Auburn and we have a chance to kind of sit back there for a few hours and take all this in, we’ll get right back on to what we have to do to get better.”