Auburn finalizing deal to make Mississippi State’s John Cohen next AD

[jbcarol]

John Talty@JTalty
From @Tomas_Verde and I: Auburn is zeroing in on Mississippi State AD John Cohen as its next AD:

Auburn is closing in on its next athletic director after nearly a two-month search and it is someone with a deep knowledge of the Southeastern Conference.

Auburn has zeroed in on Mississippi State athletic director John Cohen and is working to finalize a deal to make him the school's 16th all-time AD

Per a source with knowledge of the times.

Cohen was the former State baseball coach.

[jbcarol]

Auburn fans not thrilled with reported new AD hire on social media




Justin Hokanson
·
Oct 29, 2022
@_JHokanson

I reported on our site yesterday that John Cohen spoke with Auburn representatives about the position this week. I also reported last night that Mississippi State has already informed Cohen they'd be moving on from him (at some point) and to look for other opportunities.


Vinz Clortho (aka The Keymaster)
@AuburnFan4Ever
·
So what you're saying is, we are looking to hire a guy that Miss St doesn't even want. Nice job Auburn. Typical JABA!

[jbcarol]

Auburn officially hires John Cohen as new athletics director

[jbcarol]

Ross Dellenger
@RossDellenger
·
13h
If you are looking for one reason John Cohen left his alma mater (there are plenty), I've got three letters for you: N-I-L.

Auburn's collective has raised, or at least has pledged, around $13 million in NIL. Mississippi State is way behind.

[jbcarol]

Bruce Pearl: New AD John Cohen understands Auburn's challenges, goals

The most popular figure on Auburn's campus is excited about the future of the Tigers' athletics department under new athletics director John Cohen.

After previewing his team's preseason exhibition against Alabama-Huntsville, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl on Tuesday spoke effusively about the hire of Cohen, who was officially named Auburn's new athletics director on Monday afternoon.

"Obviously, (Cohen) sees Auburn as a place where you can do even more than he's done at Mississippi State," Pearl said. "He had a great job and they loved him down there and he was a legend down there. So, he understands our challenges, but he understands our goals also. So, I think he's going to be tremendous."

Cohen served as athletics director at Mississippi State, his alma mater, since November 2016 before resigning Monday morning. Prior to that, he spent eight seasons as the Bulldogs' baseball coach, leading the program to five postseason appearances, including a runner-up finish at the College World Series in 2013.

During Cohen's time as Mississippi State's athletics director, the Bulldogs enjoyed the most prosperous stretch in the school's athletics history in terms of success athletically, academically and in facilities enhancements. That success was highlighted by a 2021 College World Series title for the Bulldogs, marking the first team national championship in any sport at Mississippi State. Five Mississippi State programs turned in program-best seasons during Cohen's time at the helm of the athletics department, including softball earlier this year, baseball during the CWS season, soccer in 2018 and women's basketball in 2017 and 2018. He is one of three active SEC athletics director to hire an eventual-national championship winning head coach in any sport.

Now Cohen is hoping to build up similar success at Auburn, where he takes over as the 16th athletics director in program history on a reported five-year deal worth $1.5 million a year.

"I'm excited about John Cohen; I really am," Pearl said. "The guy has got unbelievable experience. Obviously, tremendous SEC experience, tremendous experience in the region having grown up in Alabama, coached at the different places he's coached all throughout the SEC as an assistant. And then built a championship program, not just a championship team at Mississippi State. And then to move on the administrator level, I know that Commissioner Sankey holds him in tremendously high regard having been in that SEC AD meetings, been in that room. Then high character, very, very intelligent."

[jbcarol]

Auburn AD John Cohen's introductory press conference

-- "Draw the 350-mile circle around Auburn, Alabama, and you're talking about some of the best student-athletes in the entire country."

-- He says he has heard and seen "the common refrain of 'Auburn being Auburn.' Adds that "Auburn being Auburn is a special thing." Goes on to list the accomplished athletes --

-- On if he has ever entered a new job with so much pressure on his first hire: Says he's not a big pressure guy. Doesn't really concern him.

-- He plans to listen and to what he can to ensure Auburn has elite facilities for its student-athletes.

-- This is the seventh SEC city he has lived in. He mentions working under Jeremy Foley and Greg Byrne, who he calls a close friend. "Nobody gets here alone."

-- On the process for finding a football coach: "Kind of thought somebody would ask that question.... This is a very, very long process." Says he has 58 things written down on a sheet of paper: "It starts with culture. It starts with X's and O's, and it starts with recruiting."

-- Now that NIL has started, "he got to be out front. We got to be aggressive. It's the way of the world. He have to jump in with both feet."

He's talked about Bama and Tuscaloosa more than Dana Altman was concerned about his friends in Omaha.

[jbcarol]

AD John Cohen: Hugh Freeze 'completely transparent' during Auburn search

Hugh Freeze was among Auburn's top targets during its coaching search, and when the dust settled on the process after four weeks, it was Freeze who emerged as the Tigers' new head coach.

Freeze is the first major hire for Auburn athletics director John Cohen, who took over on the Plains the same day former coach Bryan Harsin was fired. Cohen knew finding the right candidate was his top priority, and he approached the search with a detailed 58-point checklist that ultimately led him to Freeze, the embattled former Ole Miss coach who spent the last four seasons trying to rehabilitate his career at Liberty.

"Hugh Freeze was at the top of our list from the beginning, and we never wavered from that," Cohen said as he introduced Freeze on Tuesday morning at the Woltosz Football Performance Center.

Cohen did not take questions Tuesday.

Cohen shed some light on what he described as a "thoughtful yet thorough search."

According to Cohen, Auburn officials spoke both in person and electronically with various industry experts, professional and college coaches, teachers, law enforcement officials, student-athletes, parents of players and other sources during the process. Along with enlisting the help of a search firm, Auburn also relied on two analytics firms to assess profiles of coaching candidates, as well as law firms.

Apparently not Thomas Mars

[jbcarol]

Auburn AD John Cohen discusses 'due diligence' that led to hiring Hugh Freeze

Auburn athletics director John Cohen did not take questions at Tuesday's introductory press conference for new coach Hugh Freeze.

Cohen gave a prepared opening statement that lasted less than five minutes before turning the stage over to Freeze, and the program's new AD did not make himself available for comment to the media afterward despite the attention that comes with the hiring of Freeze.

On Thursday evening, Cohen finally took questions on Auburn's radio show, "Tiger Talk."

On the thoroughness of the search...

"Well, you know, when you make a decision of this magnitude, you treat it with the utmost seriousness. You know, a lot of people—the great thing about being part of a tradition of family like the Auburn family, you know, people have thoughts; for sure they share those thoughts, but you got to go deep, deep, deep, and you got to find out everything. And when you have a coach who has coached at as many of the places Hugh has, or any one of those candidates, you got to go to every one of those places to find out why they had success, to find out what the relationship was with the student-athletes, to find out what their abilities were to recruit. It's a very long, drawn-out process. You just, you got to do your due diligence because that's what we get paid to do."

On if Freeze is the right "fit"—a word Cohen stressed the importance of early in the search process—for Auburn...

"Well, when we first started the process and we looked at all of our criteria, Hugh Freeze jumped out at us. I mean, I just kept thinking he is such a great fit for this job, but I wanted to go deep, I wanted to interview several people, and I wanted to make sure he was the right decision. We kind of started with Hugh, we kind of ended up with Hugh for all the same reasons, and he's going to do a great job in this community in so many ways. I know Bruce is from Boston, right, and I know Hugh's from Mississippi, but when you're talking to him, if you close your eyes and you take the accents out of it, you could be talking to the same guy because both those guys have so much energy, so much passion, and they just connect with the community, and I really wanted that to be part of it. He's still got to win games, and I mentioned Bruce, he's won a ton of the games, but you still got to win games, and I really believe Hugh can do that here and will do that here."

Great fit? He's not wrong.

[jbcarol]

New AD John Cohen is getting used to 'Auburn Being Auburn'

In the three-plus months since taking over on the Plains, Cohen's been a busy man. He oversaw a football coaching search the first month on the job, ultimately landing on Hugh Freeze to lead the program into a new era, and just wrapped up a whirlwind weekend for the athletics department. The women's basketball team hosted top-ranked South Carolina on Thursday. The fifth-ranked gymnastics team set a season high in a top-10 win against LSU, anchored by another perfect-10 from Lee. The school welcomed ESPN's College GameDay to campus ahead of the men's basketball team's rivalry game against third-ranked Alabama, which saw another packed house and raucous environment at Neville Arena.

"I feel very thankful to be a part of this," Cohen told AL.com. "Every day I learn something new about the great history of this place, but I also know I feel like we have more great times ahead."

He's just a few months into a five-year contract worth $1.5 million annually — his experience overseeing the athletics department has contrasted with the outside perception about Auburn. That disparaging reputation of "Just Auburn Being Auburn," or JABA as it's often referred to online, was something Cohen had obviously heard about during his time in the SEC over the better part of the last three decades.

"You always heard that about Auburn," Cohen said. "My experience in three months has been vastly different to that reputation. I can't speak to why that is, but I can tell you if you talk to people who've known John Cohen for a long period of time, if that's the environment you want to have, you hired the wrong guy.... The experience I've had is so contrary to the reputation of Auburn that it makes me really question if anything you've heard had any validity to it at all.

"I feel like we all want what's best for these different groups — our student-athletes first, our faculty and staff and students on campus, our fanbase, our donors," Cohen said. "Everything has to be in alignment. We have to do what's right for those people, starting with our student-athletes.... It's this alignment — this agreement of, 'we're not always going to do the things we want to do, but we're going to do the things that are right for Auburn University.' That's one of the things that really drew me to Dr. Roberts. He is all about doing what's right for Auburn. This is a guy who's told me over and over again, 'Auburn has the right to dream big.'"

[jbcarol]

Auburn AD John Cohen reportedly paid $1.6M to leave MSU



Cohen earning nearly $1.6 million in first years with Tigers
11:22 AM · Jun 7, 2023

[jbcarol]

Ainslie: Auburn athletics director John Cohen inks two-year contract extension, now set to run through 2029

Auburn athletics director John Cohen has inked a two-year contract extension which extends his contract through October 2029, according to an addendum to his initial employment contract, which AL.com received a copy of via public records request Tuesday.

The addendum to Cohen's contract was signed by he and Auburn University president Chris Roberts on May 2.

Cohen initially entered into agreement with Auburn on Nov. 1, 2022 — a contract that was set to run through October of 2027.

Prior to coming to Auburn, Cohen spent six years as the athletic director at Mississippi State, where he also served seven seasons as the Bulldogs' head baseball coach.

Cohen has been tasked with hiring a pair of head coaches in Auburn football's Hugh Freeze and the recent addition of Auburn women's tennis coach Jordan Szabo. In addition to those hires, Cohen has also helped spearhead a number of facility improvements to Auburn football's Jordan-Hare Stadium and Auburn baseball's Plainsman Park.

Cohen also recently led the effort in landing a partnership with Nike as the official apparel and equipment provider of Auburn athletics.