Legacies are complicated. By nature, they’re meant to be.

But in the eyes of Auburn fans, Carnell “Cadillac” Williams’ isn’t.

When Williams leaves this place, he leaves behind a name forever engraved on the sidewalks outside Toomer’s Drugs. He carried an All-American playing career here that will never be forgotten and led a four-game run as this program’s head coach still enshrined on massive photos plastered on the walls of Auburn’s athletics facility.

In a late Thursday night statement, Auburn announced Williams will resign from his position as the associate head coach and running backs coach. He parts ways with his alma mater. It comes shrouded in rumor and uncertainty.

Time will tell what, if any, smoke becomes fire.

Auburn now has vacancies at its offensive coordinator, quarterbacks and running back position coaches. It has been rumored current Ole Miss wide receivers coach Derrick Nix, who previously coached the running backs in Oxford under Hugh Freeze, is a leading candidate for the coordinator job. Freeze reportedly plans to take over play-calling duties going into next season and analyst Kent Austin is expected to be promoted to the quarterbacks coach, according to a previous 247Sports report.

Freeze reportedly attempted to bring in Nix last offseason as an offensive coordinator. It didn’t work out. At that time, Auburn couldn’t fathom getting rid of Williams with what he had just done in the four games to close the 2022 season.

There are many around these parts who still believe Williams should have gotten Auburn’s head coaching job permanently.

Williams was named Auburn’s interim head coach after the Halloween 2022 firing of previous head coach Bryan Harsin. He set a milestone as Auburn’s first Black head coach. With just a few days to prepare, Auburn lost Williams’ first game as the head coach against Mississippi State.

The next week, Auburn hosted Texas A&M in a Jordan-Hare Stadium night game.

On that mid-November night, Auburn fans produced one of the most memorable atmospheres in this town’s history as a program ignited with a newfound energy under Williams took the field. The type of energy around a late-season game like that doesn’t happen very often for a team that wouldn’t go to a bowl game.

Auburn won 13-10. Williams nearly cried at the podium after the game. After all he’d given to Auburn, he had now won a game as its head coach.

Fittingly, Auburn under its second-all-time leading rusher hardly did anything but run the ball, utilizing quarterback Robby Ashford’s legs along with running backs Jarquez Hunter and Tank Bigsby. It was Cadillac Williams football on a Cadillac Williams team.

Williams only went 2-2 in his four games as the interim head coach, but the unity fans said he brought to a fractured fanbase after Harsin’s firing led many to believe he was the best candidate for the full-time job.

Williams is the type of speaker who could rally a group of reporters sitting at a press conference, let alone the football team in the locker room. He came back to Auburn under then-head coach Gus Malzahn to be the running backs coach beginning in 2019. He maintained the role into Harsin’s tenure before becoming the interim head coach.

He recruited Auburn’s running back room which was the lone bright spot on the 2023 offense.

He wasn’t, however, selected as the full-time head coach. Freeze was. Freeze kept Williams as the associate head coach. Retaining him would keep unity among the fanbase.

It lasted that way for one year. The fallout of his departure will be felt in ripples to come.

What Williams meant to this program will remain in the record books of his playing career and the memories of fans who were there that November night against Texas A&M, and were there to see the passion he brought back to his school.

The circumstances of a move announced in the middle of the night will continue to unravel. What will be next for him remains unclear, should that mean considering a running backs coach job elsewhere in college or professional ranks or trying his hand at a full-time head coaching job. It won’t be at Auburn.

His legacy will continue to be written elsewhere.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]