There are not many Auburn fans that will ever forget the name Brian VanGorder.
Brought in to shore up the Tigers defense by Gene Chizik in 2012, the VanGorder experiment turned into a disaster as Auburn finished 81st in total defense and went 3-9 as Chizik was fired following the year.
The coaching fraternity is tight, though, and VanGorder landed jobs at Notre Dame and Louisville as defensive coordinator following his time on the Plains, spending the past two seasons in the same position with Bowling Green.
Now, he is off to the high school ranks as he is joining Mark Hudspeth, former coach of Louisiana-Lafayette and Austin Peay, at Gulf Shores High School.
“It’s huge for us,” Hudspeth said per AL.com. “Just the fact that our student-athletes will get a chance to learn from two of the best in the business in Brian VanGorder and (former South Alabama offensive coordinator) Kenny Edenfield is special. These are guys that have coached at the highest level for quite a while now.
“I think not only will our players grow, but our current staff will continue to grow, and I think we will attract coaches who want to come here and learn from, basically, a Division I staff for the most part. We are trying to give our student-athletes every edge we can to be more competitive in this brutal Class 6A Region (1).”