BREAKING: Cal Set to Hire Ex-Boise State and Auburn Head Coach Bryan Harsin as Offensive Coordinator
Harsin worked with Justin Wilcox together under Chris Petersen at Boise State.
ESPN can now confirm Bryan Harsin is closing in on being the next offensive coordinator for the California Golden Bears. This reporting came via Chris Low and Adam Rittenberg.
Cal is set to hire Bryan Harsin, the former coach at Auburn, Boise State and Arkansas State, as offensive coordinator, and a deal could be finalized soon, sources told ESPN.
Harsin, 48, has been out of coaching since being fired by Auburn in October 2022. He spent less than two seasons at Auburn after compiling a 69-19 record with Boise State, his alma mater, and spending the 2013 season at Arkansas State. Harsin is 85-36 overall as an FBS coach.
As mentioned the night before, Harsin was in the mix for the Cal offensive coordinator position. There’s some things to like (his tenure at Boise State, some of it overlapping with Justin Wilcox) and not like (his short and contentious tenure at Auburn).
Nick broke down the benefits and the costs of hiring a coach like Harsin this morning. You can read the piece below.
Bryan Harsin: Good idea? Bad idea?
Reliable reporting has linked Bryan Harsin to Cal’s open offensive coordinator position, and so far he’s the only candidate with actual reporting attached to it. So, at the risk of jumping the gun, I think it’s worth taking a look at what Bryan Harsin might bring to Berkeley if this reporting ends up coming true.
There are a lot of questions involved with this hire:
Did his two years away from football dampen or improve his feel for the game and ability to coach?
Who is the Bryan Harsin that we are getting? The coach who carried and maintained the G5 power house that was Boise State? Or the one who cratered the talent level and never seemed to find his footing in the SEC?
How will he adapt to the current set of players we have and how will this affect the transfer portal intake?
Process-wise, this would be a return to familiarity where both Wilcox and Harsin served on the same Boise State staff in 2006-09. Will this bear fruit, or is it a “don’t stray too far, and don’t risk too much” hire that will make us wonder about the future again this time next year?
This is likely Justin Wilcox’s last chance at finding a leader on offense to push his team out of the quagmire of mediocrity they’ve found themselves in the last eight years. He is seasoned and has had great success, but is also coming off a downswing in his career Let’s see what happens.
The responses to the last few Harsin articles here seem mostly pessimistic. What exactly were people expecting? Harsin ran great offenses under Petersen and mostly above average offenses elsewhere. Will it translate? We’ll see but who did you guys think was lining up to take the OC job at Cal under a lame duck coach on the hot seat who hasn’t done better than 7-5 in a regular season in almost a decade of head coaching? They made a reasonable hire in time for the portal to open. I’m as negative as anybody about Wilcox’s tenure but, objectively, they could’ve done a lot worse here.
The Harsin situation reminds me of DeRuyter. DeRuyter was HC at Fresno State, did badly there and pissed everyone off. Fresno State people hated him, but he ended up being a great coordinator for us. Hope Harain can do the same.