Everything Auburn coach Bryan Harsin had to say

AUBURN, Alabama – Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin spoke at length on Wednesday about COVID-19, its impact on his football team and where he thinks his team is at the opening of the season against Akron.

Harsin, who is isolating himself at home after testing positive for COVID-19, has met with reporters via Zoom. Go inside for all he had to say.

ON COVID-19 MANAGEMENT

“Thank you all for your patience and flexibility, given the development over the past week. So, I’m at home in isolation, I feel great, and I hope it will continue like this. I realize I’m lucky enough to be able to say that, so very obviously from what we’ve seen, it affects everyone differently. While I’m here I’ve been in meetings and training, and just want to make sure you know all of our coaches, our players – can’t say enough about our staff, how they reacted . They did a great job. Coach Schmedding stepped up and we were able to operate as we normally would this week in these meetings and on the training ground.

“As I said on Friday, we have plans in place for this, and certainly when things come up with COVID, the teams who are able to navigate that and implement the plan properly and execute it at a high level will be the ones, I think this is going to be the most successful to get through this pandemic because as we have seen there have been some coaches and the ones that we have strengthened and the way that we have operated, these guys did a really good job.

“At this time, we are following our mitigation protocols. We will continue to do so. So, a bit of my timeline here: The test I took on Thursday, this last week, was part of what we do on a regular basis. Dr Goodlett informed me of my result, so we went through standard protocols for a positive test; no different to me than anyone else in our program. From now on, based on my schedule, I should return to the facility on Monday of next week. So, in time for match week and get our team ready for this week of training. No other coach or player has been quarantined based on my test result. Part of that is due to our mitigation protocols that we put in place and followed, so I’m proud of it. With our staff, all of this must continue.