Auburn Athletics Director John Cohen stood in front of the media to discuss the coaching change today. These are all of the thing she said.
Auburn Athletics Director John Cohen
On what he is looking for in a head coach during the upcoming search..
“All the characteristics, somebody with an edge. Somebody who’s highly competitive. In my career, I’ve found that one or two things have to happen. The head coach of almost any sport either has to have a tremendous edge to them, or they have to be surrounded by assistants who have an edge to them. There are many ways to define that, but you can call it blue collar, you can call it hard-nosed, you can call it aggressive. You can call it all those things, but usually, priority No. 1 is defining the part. Then, intelligence, strategic, forward-thinking. All those things matter. At this level of college football, you’re obviously going to have somebody who has a track record in all these areas, and you can look into that track record with the utmost seriousness. You look at somebody who can lead a building, lead a staff, lead 18 to 22, 23, 24-year-olds to compete in the best league in the country.”
On the timeline that went into the decision to depart with coach Freeze…
“We all go through our own process. In my process, I want to make sure. I want to write things down. I want to say I got a good night’s sleep, but I didn’t sleep at all on Saturday night. But I want to be able to process everything that happens, because the last thing in a leadership role you ever want to do is have a knee-jerk reaction to anything. I needed some data. I needed to, again, write everything down. I try to take notes on my phone and other places during the course of the game so that I could go find that on video or rethink that by our staff. I took time after the game to get my thoughts together and reached out to coach Freeze late, late morning on Sunday.”
On the competitive market for head coach hires…
“Until we went this route, I didn’t really, really, really deep dive every single day in the marketplace, but I think we have the best job out there. We have the best fans. We have 19 sellouts in a row. And when you consider what Auburn Football has been through, that is incredible. That is a testimony to who our fans are. I’m deeply appreciative of them. I know our whole staff is. I know our student-athletes are. I know the entire administration is deeply indebted to our fans who have been patient. The reality is, it’s no longer time to be patient. It’s time to act, and it’s time for us to make a jump. It’s time for all of us to make a jump. Our fans deserve that, and I want that to happen as quickly as possible. I have not said this, but I do want to say this. This is something I told the players on Sunday when I met with them.
I do just want to say, Hugh Freeze, his wife Jill and their entire family are world-class human beings. I know that a lot of you in the media here who have dealt with Hugh directly, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And that makes these decisions even more difficult. But he is a special man. I will always have a relationship with him, and he did some positive things in his three years. Probably the most notable is the incredible upgrade in the talent we have on the field. And I think that’s one of the most frustrating things for me right now. If you look at both sides of the ball, you’re looking at guys who are going to play in the NFL one day. We’re looking at guys who have skill, and obviously, defensively, we’ve been outstanding. I think we have one of the elite defenses in the country, but offensively, that has been a real struggle, and we have talented young people on that side of the football. So that has been extremely frustrating, and one of the reasons we have to act.”
On the decision to name D.J. Durkin interim head coach…
“I think D.J. has done an incredible job with our defense. When you’re at practice, when you watch him coach in-game, it’s pretty evident that he does have an edge. He’s someone with incredible energy and he’s somebody that the players, the student-athletes relate to. He is somebody who has strategic vision. And will we give him consideration? Absolutely, he will get consideration. But I want to go further than that. I mean, I think that D.J. is somebody who has earned that opportunity, and he will be a part of a pool that we will consider.”
On who will help with the coaching search…
“We’re not sure if we’re going to use a search firm or not. Really, one of the reasons to use a search firm is for background checks and things of that nature. If we use one, it will be more of a peripheral background type situation, even though we have opportunities to do those things on our own. I’m not sure if I will use a search firm. I will tell you this. There is no question that I will take information from industry experts, and I will take information from people who really understand college football at a high level. We will go to people who have incredible data, and we will go to people who really understand all four corners of the country in this great sport. But I am the committee. Even though I will listen and I will do as good of a job as I possibly can of taking in information, I will be the committee.”
On the timeline expectation and December signing day…
“Yeah, it certainly does, and of course, the new portal period coming up that was just changed recently. I think that is a consideration as well, but certainly as close to our plan as possible is ideal. The candidates that we are talking to, are they still playing at that time? Who are they playing for? And will they still be in a bowl? I assume that every single candidate we are going to speak to outside of the building is going to be in that situation. We are going to work as quickly as we possibly can to try to get it done as quickly after the Iron Bowl as possible.”
On the reaction from the players to the coaching news…
“I think that’s something that they would have to answer. I am just in a room addressing the team. I also could not tell you. When we called that meeting, I am sure that a lot of those guys did not get to sleep until way, way into the morning. We might have awakened them to set up a meeting, so they might have still been tired from the night before. I think that is something that they would have to answer.”
On the next coach’s ability to develop quarterbacks…
“Yeah, I think that is crucial. I think there’s no question that it’s the most important position on the field. You know it’s critically important. I hesitate to make an examination of our quarterbacks because I don’t think that’s fair from where I sit. I do know this, I know that all of them keep a tremendous effort. I know that certainly we have quarterbacks that have promise, that have futures. But for whatever reason, it just hasn’t worked in a game. I’m not talking about just our quarterbacks, I’m talking about our offense. And I think this is a good opportunity to know that I mentioned to our student-athletes just yesterday is, it’s really easy to get into a blame game and start pointing your finger at a quarterback or at the offensive line. What we know is, it’s just not working, and those student-athletes who we are responsible for because our staff brought them to campus. And I do believe we have a lot of talent on the offensive side of the football field. It’s just pretty obvious that it’s just not working. It’s not operating at a high level. And I’m probably taking a step further just by saying, gosh, if we have an average SEC offense right now, there’s no telling what our record would be, and maybe I’m not standing up here in front of you right now.”
On when he began to consider firing Hugh Freeze…
“It was just a general inefficiency of our offense, especially in fourth quarters. I think you find out a lot about your team when you watch a fourth-quarter offense. Are they going to attack the game and say we’re down a score, we’re going to get this done? For whatever reason, that was not happening offensively during the course of the season and that was something that was noticeable. Everybody in this room knows that’s something that’s got to change, and it’s got to change quickly.”
On his words to the fanbase…
“I mean, our fanbase is incredible. The moment I stepped onto this campus and went to my first football game, which was Texas A&M, it was obvious to me, this place is different. We have incredibly loyal fans. We have fans who have shown patience. We have fans who have given in every way. They’ve given their time, they’ve given financially and they have given in every way. Now it’s time for us to give back, and that’s one of the many reasons we had to make this decision. It’s time for this football program to give back to this fan base. They deserve it, and I’m going to spend every minute of every day that I’m awake trying to give our fans exactly what they deserve, which is the best. And that’s the direction we’re going to go.”
On influences from others in the coaching decision…
“Yeah, I’m really glad you asked that question because that’s a little bit of a mystery to me. I’ve heard all these myths about things like donors at Auburn, or the Board of Trustees members, or administrators, or power brokers in our own family. That has not been my experience in three years, not one time, have I had a donor or a board member or anybody else who helps guide this great university come to me and say, ‘You need to hire this person. You need to terminate this person. You need to do this.’
I mean, certainly the comments, you know, hey, the hot dogs weren’t very good. I mean, you will get that type of commentary, but that has not been my experience. That’s one of those things that might have been created by other schools in the state of Alabama. That myth is not reality. We’re in a tough spot right now. We’re going to get to the other side of it. We’re going to give our fans what they absolutely deserve, but we’re not going to live in a world of myths, because what you just described, I appreciate the question, but it just doesn’t exist.
On buyout negotiations…
“We are in discussions with Coach Freeze’s representation right now. That’s not done, and I anticipate that is probably not going to be done for a while.”
On what he learned from his first coaching search…
“I think the group of coaches that are available now are considerably different than it was three years ago. Anytime you talk with industry experts and listen to their opinion, and kind of sifting through fact versus fiction, you continue to learn. I feel like I’m always learning. I feel like every time I’m in our locker room after a football game, I’m learning. There is great knowledge out there. I certainly know that John Cohen doesn’t have all the answers, and I know that I need information, and there are sources out there to go get that information and we will pursue that.”
On the role NIL will play in the coaching search…
“I’m really proud of our administration. We’ve worked so incredibly hard in the area of third-party opportunities for student-athletes, which I think is going to be a game-changer. I think it’s going to be a differentiator. There’s absolutely no way to know who’s got what. There’s no way to know where we are versus the people we’re competing against, but just having had conversations in our industry about this subject, I think Auburn is ahead of the curve. I think Auburn has been extremely creative, and I think we have been able to generate revenue from many different sources. It’s something that we have done out of necessity at a very early stage. I think whoever runs this football program moving forward is going to benefit greatly from not only the revenue share opportunities, which everybody in our league has, but also the third-party opportunities, which might not be available to everybody in the Southeastern Conference and around the country.”
On how to judge coaches in the new financial climate of college football…
“I think that’s one of the things, the evolutionary process of the coaching profession in Power Four football is how many schools around the country had a GM (general manager) three years ago when we went through that search? I don’t know that a ton of them already had a GM. When you look at the amount of resources that Auburn and the people that we were competing against, the amount of resources that were driven to name, image, and likeness prior to House v. NCAA coming into effect, it was a really low number. It is exponentially higher now. I can’t be predictive and know exactly what everybody else is doing, but I know what we’re doing, and I know it’s going to be extremely competitive.
It’d be hard for me to imagine that there are 10 other schools that are going to be able to provide what we are doing in the third-party market to help our student-athletes in the entire country. Again, we have the best fanbase. We have sold out Jordan-Hare (Stadium) 19 times in a row. We have this incredible opportunity for our student-athletes. We have the foundation of Auburn University, and everything it brings, from the creed, to this campus, to the education it provides. The great history here not only in athletics, but academically as well, and in research. Auburn has it all, and now it’s time for Auburn to have it all in the sport of football. We’re not going to rest until that happens.”
On the pressure of selecting the next coach…
“I think pressure is one of those self-induced things. I’m going to put pressure on myself to do everything, to try to do everything the right way just like I know all of you do. I know that I owe this to this fanbase. I grew up in the state of Alabama. I know how special this fanbase is and again, I wake up every morning saying, We got to get this done. We got to get it done for the people who are at the top of the upper deck. The people who are in our suites, the people who are on the field. We’ve got to get this done. I know it’s been talked about how we’re close, right? I’m not going to say that we’re close. Close doesn’t matter. Getting it done matters. But I will say that we have an elite defense. I will say that there are a lot of areas of the game in which we excel, but the offensive side has really hurt the production of this football team, and we’ve got to get that fixed. We have to.
Now, is it fair to bring up D.J. Durkin here and say, ‘Hey, fix our offense?’ No, that’s not fair, but what we have done is we have given him the opportunity, especially with our staff and anyone else, to step forward and say this is going to be your program for the next three weeks. Do the things that you feel like need to be done internally for us to be more competitive on both sides of the football. And we have a lot of confidence that can happen.”
On other coaching staff changes…
“There are some adjustments that will be made in the coming days, weeks, and months. There will be other staff adjustments that will be made moving forward. At this present moment, I believe there have been a couple of staff moves made, and there will be more coming.”
And then interim head coach DJ Durkin stepped to the podium for a few questions.
Auburn Interim Head Coach D.J. Durkin
Opening Statement…
“Good afternoon and welcome. I appreciate you guys being here. First off, I want to say thank you to John Cohen and our university leadership. I’m truly humbled by this opportunity. This is such an elite university and football program, with a great tradition and history. It’s a special place. To represent this university as the head football coach, represent our team that way, I am humbled by that, and I promise you that I will give the best I absolutely have. I do want to take a minute and thank Coach Freeze. Myself, my family, we would not be here without him. Coach Freeze is truly a special, special man. He definitely affected our lives in many, many ways. He sees the person more than the coach, more than the player, and I think he has a unique ability to do that, and a gift to do that. I learned a lot from him, and I’m just thankful for him and for the opportunity to be here. It’s been a kind of whirlwind 24 hours.
You can imagine a lot going on. I will say this and make sure this is first and foremost – we are going to play a game on the road in this conference versus a team that is very, very good. They are well coached. They’re talented. They play with an edge. They compete. It’ll be a great test for us, and something that we embrace and look forward to. But that is completely what our focus has to be, obviously, as a coaching staff and as a team. That was obviously the message to the players earlier this morning.”
On what changes he can make with the offense…
“It’s important, in football, you realize it’s not only what you do, it’s how you do it and who does it. That’s a major thing – how you do things, how you do anything in life really matters. You can see a difference in two people doing the same exact thing, but there’s a difference in how they’re doing it. That’s our first focus. Do it with an edge, with relentless effort and with a certain sense of physicality, it has to be done.
My communication with the offense has been more schematically from a defensive viewpoint. That’s my background and what I know. I’m certainly not going to try to step in to be doing things that aren’t in my wheelhouse, but from those terms of, here’s some things defensively viewing that where we could help and offer suggestions that way. Derrick Nix will be the play caller. He’ll be the play caller every down. He’s the sole play caller, and I have extreme confidence in Derrick. Derrick and I have worked together at previous stops, as well. Derrick is a great person, a great coach and I think the players really responded to him and understand where he’s coming from. I think Derrick’s going to do a great job, and we will be aggressive in everything we do.”
On any other coaching staff changes…
“There’ve been no other changes with on the field coaches. There have been some off-field staff changes that have taken place. The on-field thing doesn’t have as much importance anymore with the new rules of allotting more than 10 guys coaching on the field. The important thing to me in my comments to the staff was that I don’t want to be changing a bunch of things, uprooting and guys start changing jobs. I think it’s important we focus on our jobs. For me, that’s wearing two hats, but I don’t want to be changing a bunch of other people to doing that. (Jake Jiannoni) is my guy that works with the linebackers on defense. He’s been doing that all year long. As the coordinator, there’s times where I need some help with the position as well. He’ll continue to do that. He does a tremendous job. He’s a tremendous young football coach. In terms of naming someone or something different, we’re not doing that.”
On the plan going forward with the quarterbacks…
“We’re evaluating that right now. There’s been discussion about them all throughout yesterday and today, and we’ll certainly come to a decision on that. That’s an important one, obviously. That’s the guy who has the ball in his hands every down, and I’m trying to gather information on that, too. That’s something I’ve not really been a part of and so for me, I’ll be incurring the decisions. I’m gathering information on that, evaluating with the offensive staff, getting their feedback and speaking to those young men. I know this – we have three tremendous young men that can play the quarterback position at a high level. I know that, so they are in the conversation on that, and we’ll make a decision here soon.”
On if he will continue calling the defense…
“Yes, I’ll be calling the defense. We won’t change how we’re doing that. I think we have a good flow of how to do things on defense. I love our staff. I love our group, and I don’t want to uproot any changes on that. So, we’re keeping that as normal as possible. Things like this press conference usually don’t come up for me on Mondays. So, we’re up there game planning. There’s obviously a few things that alter kind of what our schedule is, but we do have a good routine and how we do things, and we’re going to keep that the same.”
On the reaction from players with the coaching change…
Some of those things, I think, when you’re with your group and your guys in the team room or the locker room, it’s sacred and it stays in there. I love our team, and I love our guys. I think we’ve got a great group that will respond well to what we’re doing. I’m really excited, like I said, and humbled, and I told them that, to represent them as the head football coach is a major deal for me. It’s been cool being here. I looked around that room, and we have a lot of guys that I was a part of, somehow, of getting them here and now helping them develop and go through it. Man, that’s so important. There’s a bond in the sense of unity in there, in that group, and have to come together as a team. I think these guys will.”
On if his previous experience as a head coach will help him in this role…
“It does. It’s like anything else in life, when you do something for the first time, you either reflect back and then go, ‘Well, I would have done that differently and learned a lot from it’. Certainly, those experiences have helped, and we are all products of our experiences. I’ve been fortunate enough to have those. I’ve been fortunate enough to really be around some tremendous head football coaches throughout my career at a lot of different stops and learn from them. I think the important thing is, you take bits and pieces from others you’ve been around, from the experiences you have, and you formulate and just be genuine to who you are and how you do things. I told our team this and I’ll say it, but just because we do something different right now doesn’t mean the old way wasn’t good or was bad, or that this is better. I think you have to be yourself and run the program as you see fit and not try to do it another way.”
On if anyone individually has stood out on the defense…
“That’s a hard one to single a certain guy out. What I’ve been so proud of with these guys is they’ve collectively played well together in terms of swarming the ball and playing with effort and doing a good job of gang tackling, getting around it. That’s something that doesn’t happen without great leadership. You talk about certain guys like Keldric Faulk and Champ Anthony, those are kind of bell cows, our leaders. You want to talk about guys that are made of something and character-wise. Obviously, they do a great job on the field. You guys see them make plays and everything else, but man, those guys are the glue that holds us together. That’s been so good for us. As a coach, when you have great leadership through players, and especially when the leaders are also productive on the field, it makes your job a lot easier.”
On receiving consideration in the coaching search process and preparing for Vanderbilt…
“Our focus is 100 percent on Vanderbilt. We are trying to go 1-0 this week, and that will take all of our focus, for sure. Obviously, that’s a hard enough task on a normal basis, then you add in everything going on in distractions and all else, it will take all of us collectively to have our minds fully of that, and that’s certainly where mine is. I do not take the responsibility lightly. These players are counting on myself and our coaching staff to give them a plan that they can have success with come Saturday. That’s the focus all the way. You mentioned Diego (Pavia), I mean, we’ve had the chance to go against him before. That guy’s a tremendous competitor. That’s probably the best thing you can say. That, to me, is the highest compliment you can give someone in this sport or anything else.
He’s competitive. He’s got an edge to him. He’s always trying to find a way. He never slides. I mean, he just throws his body around, and he’s out there, you can tell he’s out there just having fun and competing. His team certainly rallies around him, and they respond to him. It all starts with him, but they’ve got talent around him as well. I think they have talent at all positions. They have an experienced offensive line. The receivers are guys that have played a lot and caught a lot of balls for them. I think their tight end is one of the best tight ends in the country, and their backs do a great job getting north. It’s a big challenge, big task. I think our guys will embrace that and be up for it.”
On expanding on the leadership of Keldrick Faulk and Champ Anthony…
“Leadership is one of those words, it’s hard to really, we’ve all heard it, we use it, but how do you really describe it? What does it really mean? I think two ways I’ll explain how those guys lead. They lead by example, first and foremost. Anytime you have someone like Keldric Faulk. He’s one of the best players in the country, so that’s a guy that legitimately could probably cut some corners if he wanted to, take advantage of the fact that no matter what Keldric does he’s probably going to be out there starting for us, right? He’s one of the best players in the country, but he’s our hardest worker. He leads by example in everything he does. He’s one of the best teammates or probably our best teammate on the field. He values every relationship he has with his teammates.
So, leading by example, and then being servant leaders. They’re not too big for anything. They’re not too big for their teammates. They’re not going to ask their teammates to do anything they wouldn’t do themselves. Again, when you have that, it makes things a lot easier, and guys fall in line. Certainly, you can see already the way that has trickled down to some of the younger guys on the roster and especially in their position group.”
On his message to the Auburn fan base…
“First of all, our fan base is incredible. The support we get every home game, whatever the situation is, whatever’s going on, whatever the time of the game, they’re there at Tiger Walk. That’s the most amazing experience you can have in this game. First off, thank you for your support, and I just want them to know that we are doing everything possible to represent them and this great university in a way that they can be proud of. This place is built on hard work, toughness, blue-collar mentality, and that is what this team has. That’s what we’re going to display. We’re going to play with a relentless effort, play for one another, and really have pride in that AU on our chest.”
On if he has talked to commits and what his message to them is…
“I have yesterday, and that’s ongoing. I had a bunch of conversations yesterday and, obviously, that’s every day. That’ll continue throughout today and this evening. The conversations are very positive, very positive feedback on both sides. This place, there is so much to recruit to in this place, and they understand that. When you bring a guy here on campus, when you bring a guy here for that gameday atmosphere we’re talking about, it’s eye-opening for anyone. Just the tradition and history of this program and all that this place can provide, this university provides you from an educational standpoint, and just this community. Auburn is an easy place to sell. These guys, there’s a lot of reasons why the guys that are in this class have chosen Auburn, and a lot of those reasons are still the same. We’re going to continue to recruit them like crazy.”
On the defense facing another tough quarterback against Vanderbilt…
“We have faced some really talented quarterbacks this year, for sure, and Diego (Pavia) will be another one of those. I think he is unique in what he does and what his skill set is. I don’t think you can really mimic and say he reminds you of another guy. We’ll obviously take bits and pieces from game plans and things that have worked, but there’s also some things we have to do differently and do in a better way, in a different way in order to try to contain him and slow them down.”
On any injury updates from Saturday…
“Nothing further to update on that right now. Those guys are recovering well. Obviously, when that comes out on Wednesday, their status will be on there.”
On if he thinks there’s untapped potential in the offense…
“Yes, I do. I think there’s talented guys in that room. I think there’s guy in that room that have the ability to be successful and want to. We have to do a great job of supporting them and providing for them. Absolutely, I do.”
On the identity of a D.J. Durkin coached team…
“We make it a big point with our guys that this is our team. I know a lot of the questions and how it’s going is offense and defense, but we’re a team. That’s first and foremost. This is our team. We all take ownership in what goes on out on that field no matter what phase it is. It’s all together. For me, it’s a group of guys that you can tell are playing for one another. How do you tell that? By the amount of energy and effort they play with. That’s it. I want our guys to go compete. I want them to play with confidence and not a care in the world. That’s it. We’re going to have a great week of practice and prepare and go out there and let loose. I want us to be the aggressor in all situations. No hesitation. I think our guys will embrace that. I know they will. We’re going to do that as a team.”
On freshmen and younger players getting playing time in the remaining games…
“We’ve had quite a bit of freshmen already playing and contributing, and I think a lot of that will continue. I don’t have a new name for you, somebody who maybe hasn’t been in the mix. Obviously, it’s a Monday. We are still game planning and going through that. Those are conversations we’ll have, but at this time, nothing different.”
