By Ainslie Lee
Auburn’s new offensive coordinator Derrick Nix was informally introduced to the Auburn fanbase during Auburn men’s basketball game against Ole Miss on Jan. 20, making the timing of the introduction undoubtedly calculated since Nix had spent the last 16 seasons in Oxford, Mississippi.
Auburn’s new co-defensive coordinator, Charles Kelly, joined Nix on the hardwood of Neville Arena as the former Auburn football player heard his name applauded too.
And then there was Ava, Nix’s 7-year-old daughter, who walked across the floor with one hand clutching to her dad and the other never leaving the pocket of her navy-colored hoodie, which had “AUBURN” plastered across the chest in orange letters.
The colors of her hoodie were new to her. The colors of the away team’s uniforms, however, those were familiar.
“She was born in Oxford, Mississippi, so all she’s known is red and blue and Ole Miss,” Nix said in an interview on March 20.
So when Nix learned he’d be getting introduced in front of a sold out Auburn crowd, he knew he had to invite his young daughter, who was still adjusting to her new surroundings.
“I was actually trying to win her over,” Nix admits. “I was trying to get her to feel it, you know, being at Auburn and everything.”
After all, Nix knows Auburn is a special place.
A native of Attalla, a small town just two and a half hours north of Auburn, Nix says he grew up rooting for the Tigers and could’ve been an Auburn Tiger himself should Terry Bowden have come knocking a bit sooner than he did.
Instead, Nix went on to have a record-setting career at Southern Miss, where his 3,584 rushing yards still stands as the fifth-most in program history.
Now, 26 years after his recruitment, Nix is finally at Auburn.
“Getting a chance to come here and actually be a part of it and help add to this great tradition, I had to keep pinching myself now that I’m here doing it,” Nix said.
It’s not a secret that Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze has long wanted a reunion with Nix after the two worked together during Freeze’s five-year head coaching stint at Ole Miss from 2012-16, when Nix served as the Rebels’ running backs coach.
Legend has it, Freeze wanted Nix to join his inaugural staff at Auburn, but Nix felt he had unfinished business to tend to at Ole Miss.
“As a coach, you get guys that you recruited, you got some guys whose career you want to see finish up. See some guys sometimes, besides the football plan, you see them maturing off the field,” Nix said. “You want to be able to see that done. And we had a good team coming back too. You just want to see the completion a little bit more.”
Ole Miss went 11-2 last season, including a narrow win over Auburn on Oct. 21 and a win over No. 10 Penn State in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl.
Six days after Ole Miss’ bowl game win in Atlanta, the Auburn football program announced it wouldn’t be retaining Philip Montgomery as a the Tigers’ offensive coordinator.
With that, the vacancy was there and it was Nix’s to fill.
But Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin wasn’t going down without a fight.
The Nix-to-Auburn saga had its moment on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, as Kiffin would consistently hint that Nix wasn’t going anywhere.
When Nix had finally made the decision to make his way back to his home state of Alabama, leaving the Ole Miss program after 16 seasons, Kiffin and the Ole Miss football program were the first to break the news in a statement on social media.
“It’s just Coach Kiffin being Coach Kiffin,” said a smiling Nix when asked about the social media antics. “I was with him for four years, so I totally understand where he’s coming from. He was just doing everything he could to keep his program as strong as possible.”
Meanwhile, Freeze had a joke of his own when asked about the matter.
“I hired him first, so I guess I have a right to him,” Freeze quipped.
But at the end of the day, Nix says it all came down to what was best for he and his family. And this time around, making the eastward jump from Mississippi to Alabama made sense for Nix — even if it meant having to try to fill the shoes of Auburn’s beloved Cadillac Williams.
Williams has since gone on to be hired by the Las Vegas Raiders in the same role.
As part of his new gig as Auburn’s offensive coordinator, Nix would also take the reins of the Tigers’ running backs room — a room that was left with big shoes to fill after Williams’ departure.
So how does he do it? How does Nix attempt to fill that Williams-sized void within the Auburn program after Williams’ passionate revival of the program in 2022?
“First I try to do a great job of understanding that I can only be me,” Nix said. “Carnell, obviously, was a heck of a football player. He’s done a great job as a coach in a short time already. The thing is, I’ve gotta look at myself and say, ‘Hey, I can’t be Carnell Williams, but I can be the very best version of Derrick Nix.’”
Nix and Williams are far from strangers.
Ironically, the two briefly played on the same high school football team at Etowah High School in Attala. When Nix was a senior running back for Etowah Blue Devils, Williams was a freshman.
“Oh he did,” Nix said when asked if Williams has reached out. “He wished me luck and I wished him luck on his endeavors.”
Now in Williams’ shoes, Nix joins an offensive staff made up of the offensive-minded Freeze, newly elevated quarterbacks coach Kent Austin, wide receivers coach Marcus Davis, tight ends coach Ben Aigamaua and offensive line coach Jake Thornton.
All together, it’s an experienced room with lots of opinions — something that might turn some incoming offensive coordinators away.
But not Nix.
“I welcomed it because obviously I’m in a position where I’m learning on the run as we go. It’s been really fun to be able to do that,” Nix said. “I’ve got all this help around me to help develop me into the very best I can be — guys I can lean on for opinions and figure out the best way to get things done.”
As far as calling plays?
“Right now, you’re looking at the guy right now,” Nix said.
And with his name on the offense, it’s Nix’s hope that Auburn is a “fundamentally efficient scoring machine.”
“We’re going to be fun to watch. We’re going to play fast, we’re going to be fearless, we’re going to be physical, we’re going to emphasize taking care of the ball,” Nix continued. “I want these guys to continue to strain to finish and just do whatever it takes to get a W on Saturday.”
Nix wants those things for the Tigers’ football program and Auburn Family, of course.
But he also wants those things for Ava, who Nix says hasn’t said much about her dad’s attempt to win her over during Auburn’s basketball game two months ago.
“It’ll be something,” Nix said. “She hasn’t talked about it yet – but I know she will in the future.”
