Making the case for each Auburn football offensive coordinator candidate

Auburn football is in need of an offensive coordinator to give some clarity for both recruits and current members of the Tigers. It’s been 13 days since Mike Bobo was let go from the post, and Bryan Harsin and the Auburn brain trust have yet to land on their next guy.

With Early Signing Day this week, that decision seems like one where immediate attention is needed.

Where is AU on its search for the next co-visionary to Bryan Harsin for the team’s offensive game plan?

Well, we’re exploring that this afternoon, making the case for each Auburn football offensive coordinator candidate.

Kenny Dillingham

Well, we know what Kenny Dillingham is capable of with a certain starting QB that could have his eyes on a new home via the transfer portal. 

The current Florida State OC/QB coach got the most that anyone has out of Bo Nix during the gunslinger’s freshman season. It was Dillingham that decided that things would be better south in the panhandle, finding out the hard way that wasn’t the case.

Dan Lanning may have submarined Georgia’s National Championship hopes with his jump to Oregon, and he now has eyes on ruining Auburn’s chances of bringing back a proven commodity on the Plains.

The interest in Dillingham from a program in College Football Playoff contention during much of the 2021 season proves that he is good at what he does. AU needs to leverage its familiarity to keep the number of OCs Nix has had in Auburn to three.

Austin Davis

Austin Davis has been in the NFL in some capacity for the last nine years. The past two years have been spent in the Seattle Seahawks organization beginning a coaching career.

He did great work with Russell Wilson, overseeing his career-year in passing touchdowns in 2020. It was an interesting year for QB play in general without the nuisances caused by loud, passionate opposing crowds, but Davis was able to navigate a switch to less physical rushing play and a conversion to pocket work for Wilson in his early 30s. Now is the time to ensure a long career, and Davis managed Wilson well until his injury this year.

Davis has an incredible body of work to bring to the negotiating table, and has worked with a player that could benefit the style of play of Dematrius Davis and Bo Nix, of course assuming he doesn’t make the transfer portal jump.

Dell McGee

Tiger fans are smitten with the idea of Dell McGee making his way southwest from Athens to Auburn. Fly War Eagle has held that opinion through two different hiring cycles for the Auburn football support staff.

With the Georgia Bulldogs coaching staff falling apart at the seams, McGee making the jump seems more plausible than ever. McGee could open more doors for AU in the state of Georgia, a point my co-editor Mary Kate Hughes recently penned.

If a moral victory over UGA somehow includes any de-commitments from the Dawgs with subsequent course-changes to the Plains, McGee would be a home-run hire.