AUBURN | Time is on Auburn’s side, for now.

The search for the Tigers’ next head coach has hit some notable speed bumps this week (to put it nicely), but it’s not time to make a panic buy. Auburn can still take as much time as it needs to find the right candidate.

It’s still the best job available by far and one that *should* be coveted by coaches across the country.

If Allen Greene and the search committee — and any others involved in the process — need to go past Christmas or into 2021, then by all means do so. The best hire in the SEC over the past two decades, Nick Saban, was made on Jan. 3, 2007.

That may have seemed like a long time back then but nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody wearing crimson and white, would argue it wasn’t worth every agonizing day.

There won’t be a Nick Saban waiting at the end of Auburn’s rainbow, but the right hire could alter the trajectory of a program that has lost four or more games for seven consecutive seasons.

Looking at the timeline, there is just one major date that Auburn needs to keep in mind and that’s Jan. 11, the start of spring semester.

Why is that important?

Well, if Auburn is going to bring in some key transfers for 2021, some real difference-makers, most are going to want to enroll right away to go through winter workouts and spring practice.

That new staff is going to need some time to evaluate and recruit those transfers, perhaps a week would be enough considering most visits are virtual. That would give the search committee (and others) nearly two more weeks to get it done. That’s a very long time in the framework of a coaching search, especially considering it started nine days ago.

Gus Malzahn’s search eight years ago took nine days. The search that yielded Gene Chizik took 10.

Remember, it’s not what happens during the process that matters — and boy oh boy a lot has happened since Dec. 13. It’s what happens at the end. Auburn still has the time to get it right.