Honestly, your guess is as good as mine.

Predicting how things are gonna go at Auburn is like trying to catch wind. Good luck.

After reports that Harsin’s immediate future at Auburn was in question following a mass exodus on his staff and with players in the transfer portal, Auburn president Jay Gogue said at a board of trustees meeting Friday that “I just want you know we’re trying to separate fact from fiction. We’ll keep you posted and make the appropriate decision at the right time” (via ESPN).

What we don’t know is whether internet rumors of a potential Bobby Petrino-like scandal are true. What we do know is that Auburn players have voiced opinions on Harsin. Some, like former Auburn receiver Kobe Hudson and Smoke Monday, criticized Harsin’s inability to relate to his team while Chandler Wooten defended the first-year Auburn coach.

Needless to say, it’s a mess on The Plains.

Whether Harsin even reaches a Year 2 remains to be seen. If there’s any attempt to fire Harsin with cause (TBD on what the “cause” would be), it’s clear that he wouldn’t go down without a fight. If he’s fired at the end of the 2022 season without cause, Harsin would be paid 75% of his remaining contract, which would be a $15 million buyout.

(For all I know, Harsin is out by the time you’re reading this. But just for the sake of argument, let’s live in a world where Harsin does indeed get a second season to right the wrongs of his bizarre Year 1.)

These are the 5 things he’d have to do:

1. Get stability with the coordinators

Duh. I wonder how much of this conversation with Harsin would’ve been avoided had he simply kept Mike Bobo instead of firing him. Granted, Auburn scored 1 offensive touchdown in the third and fourth quarter in the final 5 games of the regular season. That’s not exactly “keep me around” material.

Then again, can beggars be choosers? It was telling to see a 3-week search end with Austin Davis … who then turned around and left before he ever coached a practice.

The exits from Davis and Derek Mason put Harsin firmly on any hot seat, no matter who you believe in all of this. Mason resigned before he took the Oklahoma State defensive coordinator job. Harsin didn’t mess around with a search there. He simply promoted linebackers coach Jeff Schmedding to that role.

Think about this. If and when Harsin hires another offensive coordinator, it’ll be his 5th coordinator in 13 months on the job. That’s only acceptable if you’re 10-2 and your guys keep leaving because they get better opportunities. It’s not acceptable when you tie for the program’s longest in-season losing streak since the Harry Truman administration.

The good news for Harsin is that Schmedding worked with him each of the last 3 years dating back to when he joined the Boise State staff in 2019. One would think someone who has a built-in relationship with Harsin has a better chance of sticking around than an outside hire.

As for the offensive side of the ball, you don’t need to have a top-20 offense to quiet the masses. You need a coordinator who rises above some basement-level expectations and at the very least, feeds the ball to Tank Bigsby as much as possible. Obviously, that new OC can’t have a month like Bobo had.

This sounds like a crazy — and perhaps idealistic — concept at Auburn these days, but Harsin having 2 coordinators who can come in and help keep things afloat would go a long ways.

2. At the very least, make the transfer portal a 2-way street

Watching 20-plus guys leave in a 2-month stretch since the end of the season is rough, by any stretch. Do I think we’ll see a lot more transfer portal movement with relatively new coaches compared to the established ones? Sure. The new rules make that a perfectly realistic possibility.

If Harsin currently had a dozen guys set to join Auburn from the portal, we’d be having a different discussion right now. But instead, he only got 5.

Yeah, that has to change. Somehow. I realize the optics right now might not exactly be conducive to such a development.

Harsin needs to approach the portal like Brian Kelly or Lane Kiffin. Both of them, in different situations with different roster needs, got double-digit players from the portal and elevated their team’s floor after a pretty significant personnel exodus. Harsin doesn’t seem opposed to building the roster that way, which is good. He’s not Dabo Swinney when it comes to the portal.

But losing 4 times as many players as you’re bringing in doesn’t fly when you’re mediocre. Maybe that means Harsin needs to take a look in the mirror and evaluate some of his personality traits that have been criticized.

3. You MUST figure out the quarterback situation

TJ Finley thinks he has the upper hand, Zach Calzada probably wouldn’t have transferred to Auburn if he didn’t think he had a shot to win the job and Dee Davis would just like any sort of run.

If Auburn had stability at quarterback, Harsin’s outlook would be different. Instead, the most experienced SEC quarterback bounced after floundering late and Harsin was left with the underwhelming duo of Finley and Calzada. Whispers of Caleb Williams coming to Auburn went up in smoke, and barring a post-spring addition, we’re not likely to see anyone else enter the fray.

Knowing Harsin, this will turn into a battle that lasts into the season. We’ll see him say virtually nothing about the battle, regardless of what the spring game shows us. Auburn needs stable quarterback play and a season-long starter. Nix was one of those 2 things for most of his 3 seasons on The Plains.

If there’s any sort of quarterback controversy in the first month of the season, things will go from bad to worse for Harsin.

4. Um … how can I put this gently? Avoid any *more* reasons to set the internet ablaze

You get what I’m saying.

I’m not sitting here trying to tell another man how to live his life. I am, however, saying that there are consequences to state employees on a $5 million contract that don’t apply to your next-door neighbor.

If you’re Harsin, you can’t prevent rumors. But you can control what you can control.

5. Let’s go with 8-4. That’s the line.

If Harsin gets to a scenario in which he can play out the season and let his record do the talking, there will be a legitimate question about what it would take to stay and avoid that $15 million buyout.

The good news for Harsin is that he kicks off the season with 5 games at Jordan-Hare Stadium. None of Auburn’s first 5 opponents won more than 7 games last year. Harsin can quiet some of the preseason skepticism with a 5-0 start that gets Auburn into the top 15 heading into the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.

The bad news for Harsin is that he’s got Georgia and Alabama on the road because it’s an “even” year. Auburn had 4 instances of that in the Playoff era. Only 1 of those seasons ended with a Top 25 finish, and it was on the heels of a 4-4 conference record back in 2014.

If Harsin goes 7-5, it would probably feel like a repeat of 2021 and my guess is that he’d be gone, unless that included a win over Alabama or Georgia. There’s not really another game that moves the needle to change the perception. Ask Gus Malzahn about that. Nothing will please the bosses — and earn a new contract — like taking down the Tide. Now, you can add Georgia to that conversation. Auburn hasn’t beat Georgia in Athens since 2005, and the Tigers haven’t won in Tuscaloosa since the Cam-Back in 2010.

October is a long ways away for Harsin. Shoot, his first Iron Bowl probably feels like a lifetime ago. If Harsin were to stick around for the entirety of 2022, perhaps he’d feel like he got a second life.

It can’t be much worse than his first one on The Plains.