Carnell “Cadillac” Williams is a placeholder at Auburn Universityb — a placeholder for a job in case a viable candidate isn’t interested. And the knee-jerk reaction, given the way Auburn has treated its head coaches the past handful of years, is: Who would want it?

Well, the reality is there are a lot of coaches who would want the job as head football coach at Auburn. It’s a place where you can compete, a place where you can win big if everyone is pulling in the same direction. Prior to Bryan Harsin’s cup of coffee, the previous 5 and 6 of the previous 7 head coaches at Auburn finished seasons ranked in the top 5. Before Harsin, 2 straight head coaches played for a national championship. Gene Chizik won one in 2010.

So to say this job is unattractive would be a short-sighted statement. Are there obstacles? Of course there are. The same could be said with any job.

In all probability, Williams will not be named the permanent head coach at Auburn. There are some big-name candidates being bandied about. But all that will sort itself out once the season comes to a merciful end.

The Tigers are languishing in a 5-game losing streak, and at 3-6, they would need to win all 3 remaining games just to break even and become bowl-eligible. They lost the last 5 games of the 2021 season, including the Birmingham Bowl to Houston. You’d have to go all the way back to 1950 to find the last time Auburn lost 6 consecutive games in the same season. That year, the Tigers lost all 10, and as a result they ushered in the Ralph “Shug” Jordan era. By the way, just 7 short years later under the guidance of Jordan, Auburn won all 10 games on the 1957 schedule and with it, a national championship.

Here’s to hoping the current turnaround will be at least as swift and successful.

Who guides the ship through these troubled waters is anyone’s guess. Williams would have to be considered a longshot, but so was Ed Orgeron — a placeholder himself who was tabbed as interim head coach at LSU after the Les Miles firing. Orgeron was the longest of longshots to get the job, but he landed it after going 6-2 to finish the 2016 season in Baton Rouge. Three years later, he won the national championship with arguably the greatest college football team in history.

Orgeron got the job because the Tigers succeeded on the field. Off the field, he was one of them — a Cajun to the core whose dream it was to be the head coach at LSU.

Williams’ story has similarities. An All-American running back at Auburn, he helped lead the Tigers to an undefeated 2004 season. He’s definitely one of them. He still holds Auburn’s all-time record for career rushing attempts and rushing touchdowns.

A 1st-round draft pick, Williams spent 7 seasons in the NFL before continuing his football career in the coaching ranks. It began in 2016 at West Georgia as a graduate assistant. He later served as running backs coach at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and in 2018 he took the same position with the Brimingham Iron of the Alliance of American Football.

In January 2019, Williams came home to Auburn as running backs coach under head coach Gus Malzahn, and he was retained by Harsin.

In his 4th year of coaching at Auburn, Williams is the longest-tenured assistant on the staff. So it made sense that he would be named interim head coach a week ago Monday before the Mississippi State game.

That left Williams, and the rest of the Auburn coaching staff, scrambling to put together a game plan for Mississippi State on the road.

It looked it in the 1st half. Tentative and somewhat disarrayed, Auburn fell behind 24-3 and looked to be in for a very long night.

But give Williams, the staff and the team a lot of credit. At halftime, Williams challenged the Tigers to keep fighting and believing in one another. And they responded, scoring 27 points in the 2nd half before falling in overtime.

The Tigers hadn’t scored 27 points in a half since opening the season with 28 in the 1st half vs. Mercer.

That has to be encouraging. Auburn now gets a full week with Williams to prepare for Texas A&M on Saturday at Jordan-Hare, then finishes up the season with Western Kentucky before the Iron Bowl in Tuscaloosa.

He won’t say it out loud, and maybe he hasn’t yet allowed himself to entertain the idea. But you have to believe that Williams, like Orgeron at LSU, would love to be the permanent head coach. Winning a couple of these final games would go a long way toward helping that cause.

But right now, Williams remains focused on the moment, on the preparation, on getting his team ready for the next challenge. And that’s really the proper approach to take.