Georgia Southern Football Posts -- FanHouse

Auburn's Nall Says He's Not Interested In The Georgia Southern Job

Here we go again. Another college coach has come out and said point blank that he's not interested in a head coaching job at another school. This time it comes from Auburn offensive line coach Hugh Nall.

Today, Nall said he had no interest in the vacant Georgia Southern head coaching job. It came open on Monday when Brian VanGorder left Statesboro to be the linebackers coach for the Atlanta Falcons.

"There is a rumor going around that I am interested in that job and it is just not true," said Nall. "I am not going to coach at Georgia Southern. I am not going anywhere. I am very happy at Auburn."

You may remember that Nall was a finalist for the job when VanGorder was hired. Nall was the starting center on the 1980 Georgia national championship team and had close ties to the late Erk Russell. It's unclear whether he still has connections with the athletic department at Georgia Southern.

Hugh, all we ask is that you please don't pull a Slick Nick Saban on us. Say what you mean and mean what you. We're begging you.

It seems like now would be the perfect time for Nall to leave if he was interested in a heading coaching position. Next season he must replace four starters on his offensive line, including All-American guard Ben Grubbs.

He may want to stay because of the group he's got coming in next year. He already has verbal commitments from four highly touted high school linemen and appears very close to getting one from Lee Ziemba, the talented tackle from Rogers, Arkansas.

Erk Russell: A Good Auburn Man Moves On

A lot of people never knew that Erk Russell was an Auburn man. A good Auburn man. He was the school's last four-sport letterman. All of you have heard by now of his death in Statesboro, Georgia on Friday. College football can be a strange thing. It's still hard to understand sometimes how two of Auburn's most storied players, Vince Dooley and Russell, became to mean so much to Georgia athletics. The same can be said of Pat Dye - just in reverse.

Many have forgotten that Russell served under legendary coach Shug Jordan. He returned briefly to Auburn after his playing days, serving as an assistant coach for the Tigers from 1958-62. In a strange twist of events, Russell was in line to become the Georgia coach in 1980 had Dooley taken the Tiger head coaching job.

Through the years, when Russell was having so much success at Georgia and Georgia Southern, I often wondered what kind of impact he would have had on Auburn had he stayed close to the program. We'll never know. What we do know is that a fine human being left a lasting mark on a lot of people, including those wearing orange and blue.