Former Auburn basketball star and current TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley has never bitten his tongue when it comes to speaking out or on the current affairs that are going on with the Auburn Tigers football team.

Barkley had high praise for current Auburn coach Bryan Harsin for having the guts to take the Tigers job knowing who is on the other side of the state of Alabama.

He spoke about Harsin with Dusty Dvoracek and Danny Kanell on Sirius XM on Thursday:

“I like our new coach; I like Coach Harsin a lot,” Barkley said. “He took a big chance and that tells me he’s got courage and conviction.”

Barkley continued to say that Harsin could have taken the easy way out and stayed at Boise State, but decided to take this new challenge at Auburn.

“He took the hardest job in college sports, but to come to Alabama and go against Nick Saban, that tells me he wanted to test himself,” Barkley said.

Barkley says he enjoys the challenge of facing Alabama every year. In fact, he compared it to facing the greatest NBA player of all time, Michael Jordan.

“We have to go against Michael Jordan every year and I look forward to that challenge,” he said.