In a late Thursday night press release, Auburn announced Carnell “Cadillac” Williams will resign as the team’s associate head coach and running backs coach.

His sudden resignation removes a fan favorite from his alma mater. His five-season tenure as a coach at Auburn included a four-game stint in 2022 as the interim head coach after previous coach Bryan Harsin was fired.

But with Williams out, who’s next?

Auburn currently has three jobs open on the offensive side of the ball: offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and running backs coach. The pieces of how Auburn will put its puzzle pieces back together are starting to become clear.

Last week, it was reported Freeze will return to calling plays after passing off the duty in the 2023 season to former offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery. Montgomery was fired on Jan. 5.

In addition to being in charge of the offense, Montgomery was also Auburn’s quarterbacks coach.

In addition to Freeze returning to playcalling, reports have suggested Kent Austin — Freeze’s former offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Liberty who is currently a special assistant to the head coach at Auburn — will take over the quarterbacks coach role.

That leaves the running backs position, Williams’ old job.

Derrick Nix, the current wide receivers coach and assistant head coach at Ole Miss, has been widely linked to Auburn.

Nix has spent the last 16 seasons at Ole Miss. He has spent more than a decade of that time as the running backs coach.

He was the Rebels’ running backs coach when Freeze was the head coach from 2012-2016. The two have familiarity already.

Nix, a graduate from Southern Miss, was a graduate assistant with his alma mater in 2003 before coaching the running backs there from 2004-2006. He spent the 2007 season as a quality control coach with the Atlanta Falcons and then arrived at Ole Miss as the running backs coach in 2008. He’s been there ever since.

Nix switched from coaching running backs to coaching wide receivers beginning in the 2020 season.

While Nix may not have the heartstring connections to Auburn that Williams did, he does have more SEC coaching experience and is regarded as a better recruiter. Nix is listed as the primary recruiter on three five-star rated commits. Two of those are on the defensive side of the ball.

How Auburn will divide out the offensive coordinator title could be fluid. Freeze has options. With the much larger role he plans to have in the offense, Freeze may as well be effectively the offensive coordinator himself. He could, should he hire both, give a co-offensive coordinator title to both Austin and Nix.

Should one person be given the solo title of offensive coordinator? Nix — should he be hired — would appear the most likely candidate as an incentive to leave Oxford.

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