David Pollack addresses Auburn’s ‘little brother’ mentality, whether job has value

For the third time in the last six years, Auburn will end a season without the head coach it started with after third-year head coach Hugh Freeze was fired Sunday. With that move, Freeze becomes the third Tigers head football coach to be let go in-season, joining Gus Malzahn in 2020 and Bryan Harsin in 2022.

And much like former assistants Kevin Steele and Cadillac Williams before him, Auburn defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin will assume the interim duties over the final month of the regular season. as Tigers athletic director John Cohen engages in his second football coaching search since being hired in late 2022, he’ll do so with the intention of returning Auburn to its former championship-caliber glory.

It’s because of that past success, including winning the 2010 BCS National Championship and playing for another in 2013, that former ESPN analyst and Georgia alum David Pollack believes Auburn is a much better job than some like FOX Sports‘ Joel Klatt are making it out to be.

“It’s not a great job if you’re not even the best or biggest or most important program in your own state. Like, sorry I’m not sorry. That’s what it is. And, Auburn has a little brother complex. They just do,” Klatt said earlier this week. “They’re not Alabama, and it’s not even close. And yet, they want to be Alabama. So, they feel like their expectations, and they operate — from a booster perspective and a program perspective — as if, ‘Well, our expectations are that we’re Alabama.’ But you’re not.”

David Pollack on Auburn: ‘They have elite players, elite resources, elite facilities, like everything about them has a chance to be elite’

While those points are difficult to argue given the Tigers’ recent history on the field, Pollack highlighted several of the reasons Auburn remains an elite-level SEC job, even in a year when traditional conference powers Florida and LSU are also searching for their next head football coaches.

“Agreed, Auburn is not Alabama. … They’re second fiddle, they’re (the) little brother, whatever you want to say. That’s factual, they are (all that). … But there’s a couple of things that I think too when you look at Auburn that work in their favor,” Pollack said on Monday’s episode of his See Ball Get Ball with David Pollack podcast. “They won a natty in 2010, and they played for (another) in 2013. Those count. When you talk about programs that have played for two national titles in the last 15 seasons, … that list consists of Bama, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State, LSU, Notre Dame, Oregon and Auburn. Auburn’s on that list.”

Pollack then pointed to the Tigers’ diehard fanbase best known for their tradition of rolling the trees on Toomer’s Corner in downtown Auburn with toilet paper after big wins. And there’s no mistaking the sheer level of talent that’s come through The Plains in recent years.

“Auburn’s fans show up for every single game. … 100,000 showing up, … the crowd is unbelievable, the fans are crazy insane, they have a ton of talent there,” Pollack continued. “But, I just think, yes, … the last five seasons, Auburn’s been bad. They’ve been worst than Kentucky. … But to act like Auburn is not a program that has history, that is a proud program, that has a proud fanbase. They have elite players, elite resources, elite facilities, like everything about them has a chance to be elite. … Yes, they’re (playing) second fiddle to Alabama (in the state, but) everybody’s second fiddle to Alabama. There’s not a team in the country that hasn’t been second fiddle to Alabama. So that’s not a slight. I think it’s a slight when you say this job is just not very good.”