Following the departure of safeties coach and co-defensive coordinator Charles Kelly, Auburn has promoted former special assistant to the head coach TJ Rushing to be its next safeties coach.

The announcement came Wednesday morning.

Rushing came to Auburn in 2024 as a special assistant to the head coach following eight seasons as either a cornerbacks coach or defensive backs coach at four different schools.

“I’m very appreciative to Coach Freeze and Coach Durkin for this opportunity,” Rushing said. “I witnessed firsthand this past season how special Auburn is and what we are building here. I’m very familiar with Coach Durkin’s defense, previously working with him at another school, and know our defensive personnel here very well. I look forward to helping us build a championship-level defense and team.”

His most recent job prior to Auburn was the defensive backs coach role at Texas A&M from 2020-2023, spending two seasons under defensive coordinator DJ Durkin.

Rushing’s return to on-field coaching pairs him with Durkin again, allowing the defensive staff to retain some continuity despite losing Kelly and defensive edge coach Josh Aldridge.

Prior to his four seasons at Texas A&M, Rushing made stops at Arizona State, Northern Arizona and Memphis. He worked as both a graduate assistant and defensive quality control coach at Arizona State before getting his first cornerbacks coach job at Northern Arizona in 2015.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m