Although Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl seemingly swatted down a run for U.S. Senate earlier this week, Auburn Rivals, now a part of the On3 Network, staff writer Bryan Matthews still thinks he is "leaning" towards declaring for the GOP primary to replace U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn).
Rumors about Pearl's interest popped up immediately after Tuberville announced his gubernatorial run, and those close to Pearl think he "wants to get in the fight."
While the chatter of the coach entering the fray has mostly died down after Pearl visited Washington, D.C. last month, Matthews predicted Pearl would hand the whistle over to his associate head coach and son, Steven Pearl, to enter the race.
"I think we both have an opinion on this," Matthews told senior staff writer Jay G. Tate during this week's "The Rundown." "And I'm OK stating mine. I don't care who gets upset about it. But I think that Steven Pearl is going to be the head coach at Auburn at some point this season. I don't know when, how or what. But I think his father is probably going to declare, you know, in the Senate race, you know, as a Republican candidate."
"He's certainly leaning that way," Tate replied.
"Yeah, in my opinion. I'm not saying it's fact," Matthews clarified.
"Right," Tate agreed. "We don't know it's fact. But I think it's leaning that way, too. And that's a whole different thing."
He then pointed to an Auburn University release to usher in the athletics department's move to Nike apparel after two decades with Under Armour that quoted the younger Pearl rather than his father, while all other major sports' head coaches were quoted.
"But I thought it was interesting that Steven Pearl was the one quoted. It's almost kind of like Auburn's putting him out there," Tate said.
"Oh, yeah," Matthews replied. "That's been, you've sort of seen signs of this for a while, right? This didn't just start happening. ... And I'm not saying this is some great scheme or coordinated effort, but it's certainly something, if it's going to happen, you want to do. You want to get Steven out there and get people more comfortable with them and get him more comfortable doing things like that."
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