What the heck???

BREAKING: Bruce Pearl is expected to retire as the head coach at Auburn, sources tell me and @PeteThamel. His son, Steven, is expected to be the head coach for the upcoming season. pic.twitter.com/gmCAUUQgCD

— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) September 22, 2025

Running for Congress.

Hope it's not health related

I guess we should hope that Steven kills it this year

bobinator said:

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I guess we should hope that Steven kills it this year

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Exactly what I was thinking

Retired late enough to where his son is the only choice for HC

This should go well for them

Alabama senate seat is open with Tuberville running for governor.

I dont think I knew Pearl's son was on his staff, much less the lead assistant.

Has been for a while, he's been associate head coach the last couple of seasons.

Maybe this has been in the works for a while so the Auburn folks aren't surprised but I still absolutely HATE this kind of thing.

Auburn isn't Duke or anything but we've got a power conference job going to someone who's been in coaching for less than a decade and has no experience outside of working for his dad. It's absolutely ridiculous.

they have any players that we would want through the transfer portal? SEC network just said most of their team just transferred in and not many big teams would have the money to spend on players and already have full rosters.

I was thinking every thing they said did not eliminate us from consideration. We have money, new coach from Alabama area that would probably be well versed in their players, and I thought you guys said we still have at least one roster spot open

We're like a month into the school year I don't think anyone is going anywhere right now. End of the year is a different story though.

Yeah I realized that but due to the extreme nature of the timing of him leaving and them saying that the 30 day window is opening up now for those guys, etc etc, I thought well maybe we would kick the tires on some of their guys since Bucky is from that area too.

Buckys gone

Auburn doing a real search at the end of last season coming off a Final Four appearance would have been pretty wild. Will Wade would probably have been kicking himself for already taking the NC State job.

this is way to give the son a year to get the job. Most likely he wouldn't have gotten an interview if Bruce bailed last year.

Yeah, that's clearly the play, it's an extremely annoying trend.

bobinator said:

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Yeah, that's clearly the play, it's an extremely annoying trend.

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only place i can it being somewhat OK is UH. But i think Kelvin has made that clear and I think UH is cool with that too.

I still don't like it on principal, but that one is definitely the least annoying. Kellen Sampson at least coached a couple other places and worked for coaches that weren't his dad, albeit only for like four years and he's been on the Houston staff ever since.

I've said this before but I think it should be outright illegal to hand off a public job to a child of the previous person who had it.

"The university has given me an opportunity to stay here and be Auburn's senator. I need to focus now on being a great husband, being a great father, being the best grandfather I can possibly be."

Bruce Pearl is staying at Auburn as a special assistant to the athletic director

— Justin Ferguson (@JFergusonAU) September 22, 2025

this is even crazier, is the ncaa snooping around or something. Or is this just the time to get your son a HC gig

JJxvi said:

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This should go well for them

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These always go great. Nobody even noticed the Bob Knight to Pat Knight change at tech.

BQ_90 said:

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"The university has given me an opportunity to stay here and be Auburn's senator. I need to focus now on being a great husband, being a great father, being the best grandfather I can possibly be."

Bruce Pearl is staying at Auburn as a special assistant to the athletic director

— Justin Ferguson (@JFergusonAU) September 22, 2025

this is even crazier, is the ncaa snooping around or something. Or is this just the time to get your son a HC gig

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"I need to focus on being a great husband and father" = he was slingning meat off site.

Bruce Pearl has released a video.

pic.twitter.com/Lw94rBmxY7

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) September 22, 2025

I'll be interested to hear Barkley's take on this and if Auburn donors were in the loop on what was transpiring here.

why do i think the ncaa will announce some investigation in the coming weeks.

This just seems very odd to me

Pat didn't last that long at Tech..,

If an NCAA investigation were in the works I'd think he'd be all the way out and I definitely don't think they'd be appointing his son as the next coach.

I just think he's decided he doesn't have the same passion for basketball as he does for other things anymore.

Little too much drama and theater in that announcement for me

Bruce's son gonna get more than 1 year to show he can handle it, with dad as 'special assistant' to AD. I am thinking Auburn hoops job unlikely to come open for quite some time yet unless catastrophic collapse.

I bet this is health related

Pearl's son is a 38 year old who worked as a medical sales rep for years until he took up coaching in 2017. Only ever coached under his dad. I'm sure it's the best hire for Auburn.

— Justin Rowland (@RowlandRIVALS) September 22, 2025

bobinator said:

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I guess we should hope that Steven kills it this year

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The literal or the figurative definition?

BQ_90 said:

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Bruce Pearl has released a video.

pic.twitter.com/Lw94rBmxY7

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) September 22, 2025

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It's really a full 14 minutes?

Nice music, lighting, and staged scene.

I've always thought Buzz and Pearl were similar but a 14 minute farewell video is EXTREMELY something Buzz would do.