Greene’s resignation comes at a time when more leadership voids could soon arise. So where do the Tigers go from here?
The inevitable became imminent on Friday, when Auburn’s Allen Greene resigned from his position—an unheard of move for an athletic director secure in his role, but Greene was never really secure in that role.
Nearing the end of a contract that would expire in January 2023, Greene’s tenure was rocky and the ground beneath him changed quickly. A month before he was hired in January 2018, then-football coach Gus Malzahn received a seven-year extension at the end of the 2017 football season from school president Steven Leath ( who secured his job in May 2017). Some presidents aren’t very hands-on with athletics, but Leath was. Malzahn received that extension after earning a spot in the SEC championship game in a rematch against Georgia with a College Football Playoff berth on the line. Auburn lost, but Malzahn had bought the equity back and signed a new deal with a massive buyout.
The boosters who wanted him out couldn’t really get rid of him after such a great season even if they wanted to, and the new deal also helped stave off an open job in Arkansas (Malzahn’s home state, where he coached at -high school legend and assistant for one year with the Hogs). None of the above is Greene’s fault, it was a leadership vacuum in the athletic department that nature chewed up, so Leath stepped into it.
With a coach believed to be sewn up for the near future, Greene took over most of the rest of the athletic department. Within 18 months, he didn’t exactly make any friends in the department due to most budget cuts across the board 10%, including to a baseball team that had just made the College World Series and a men’s basketball team that had just made the Finals. Four, they increase the tension with her head coach, Bruce Pearl. By mid-2019, Leath was out, replaced by former president Jay Gouge, and Malzahn went through the 2019 and ’20 seasons before being fired in December 2020.
Greene oversaw an Auburn athletic department that underwent substantial change during his tenure.
Influential boosters orchestrated a palace coup and ousted Malzahn from his job with a hefty buyout that came with it. They tried to put their own man in the job but backed out after—in part—a social media campaign put them off. In the Auburn tradition of one leadership void after another, Greene stepped in and led a conventional search that landed with an unconventional name in then-Boise State coach Bryan Harsin. Harsin’s hiring isn’t why Greene no longer has his job, but it certainly didn’t help. And there were rumors of Greene’s involvement in several other administrative searches around the sport as it became increasingly apparent that he was not going to get a contract extension. Greene also saw some of his power in the athletic department diminish after the university’s COO, Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, was brought in to help oversee athletics.
In February 2022, the boosters were back again trying to mount something that would stick to the shooting of Harsin. He remained firm on the money owed to him, no one found anything concrete after an internal investigation and Harsin remains head coach. Many sources expected Harsin and Greene to be let go after the season if the Tigers had a tough year on the field, but the end has now come and Greene is leaving to, as the release said, “explore other professional interests.”
If you’ve followed along you’ll know that Auburn functions through dysfunction almost exclusively. This current tumultuous schedule comes from the artist who gave us hits like JetGate, the Cam Newton recruitment and a probation scandal that cost the program a title shot in the early 1990s—and which is simply riveting the face
Auburn has another new president, Christopher Roberts, and once again the question arises: What kind of program does it want to be, and who is really in control? Auburn is no stranger to scandal or dysfunction but there is one common denominator over the last 40 years you have to give them: winning.
There will be the usual suspects if Auburn chooses to go in: Tim Jackson, head of Auburn’s booster organization or director of compliance Rich McGlynn. Former NFL CIO and Auburn alum Michelle Mckenna is also a name to know as the search begins. Auburn could also choose to go the search firm route and draw another outsider, but it’s unclear how much has really changed on the inside.
There’s a best-case scenario here where Auburn seriously contends for the SEC West on the back of a good defense and makes Harsin’s firing politically unsustainable, just like Malzahn did in 2017. The football program moves forward amicably and tensions cool. A new AD can step into that situation along with a flourishing men’s basketball program and there is some stability.
But if Auburn doesn‘t screw up on the field and people who don’t like Harsin push to get their way, there could be a brand new AD or trying to hire a new coach in the middle of a huge headwind that they may not fully understand or AD went into a job with a new head coach they had no say in the hiring, along with all the issues that can come if that head coach is not the right guy.
This is Auburn. Which one do you think is more likely?
