Auburn football video coordinator wins national award: 'A blessing to be here'

AUBURN, Ala. – Matt Hard demonstrated the Southeastern Conference motto when his peers selected him to be the SEC’s 2023 Video Coordinator of the Year.

It Just Means More.

“I was shocked,” said Hard, Auburn’s director of football technology & digital innovation. “These are the guys I’ve looked up to in this profession.”

The SEC recognition made Hard eligible for national honors, which, to Matt’s surprise, he won at the Collegiate Sports Video Association’s annual conference in Baltimore in May.

“I was speechless,” he said. “For me that’s very hard. I think I might have delivered the worst speech of all-time.”

Hard’s team, which includes full-time staff and 13 students, records and arranges video from multiple angles from every Auburn game and practice for the coaching staff to review and evaluate. But that’s only the beginning of his job description.

“The video is just a small part of this job now,” Hard said.

That’s where the innovation kicks in. At the new Woltosz Football Performance Center, Auburn uses remote cameras to record high-angle video. Gone are the days of lugging cameras up towers to capture all-22 video, the next step in Auburn’s quest to stay at the forefront of ever-evolving technology.  

Hard’s team also helps with audio and video for clinics, camps and recruiting visits.

“I sometimes tell people we’re just the office of things that plug in,” said Hard, who assists Auburn Athletics’ IT staff. “We are the face of computer and technology help for this entire building. We’re the front lines for that.”

When Hard’s high school in Texas started a film program when Matt was in ninth grade, it sparked the beginning of his eventual career.

“I learned I enjoyed working with cameras and knew I wanted to do something with that,” he said.

As a high school junior and senior, he added a side hustle when the football team hired him to shoot from the sidelines and edit highlight videos for the princely sum of $100 for the season.

“That’s a lot of money,” Hard recalled thinking. “I’m ready to roll.”

In addition to the hundred bucks, the job showed Hard that he enjoyed sports as well as video.

“We were not sports people at all,” said Hard, whose sports diet at the time consisted of watching Cowboys games because his school friends did. “It’s still flooring to my parents that I work in this now.”

Matt and his high school pal on the video team attended the University of North Texas, 45 minutes from his hometown of Garland.

His friend started working right away for the football team. When another member of the video team left in October, Matt got the gig.

“That was how I started,” said Hard, who spent the next three and a half years working for UNT’s video staff, eventually getting to travel to road games. “That really fostered my love for football. I had no idea that this was an actual job.

“I knew that I loved college athletics and I wanted to do something with that when I graduated. I love learning about everything our job entails.” 

Hard then interned at Alabama before landing a full-time job, then worked with the Atlanta Falcons during their Super Bowl season in 2016. He returned to the University of Alabama for four years before coming to Auburn in 2021.

“That’s something that’s special about working here at Auburn,” he said. “It is so easy to find here in Athletics genuine good people. It makes it so much more fun and enjoyable to put in the hours and the work that we do to see something really cool happen on the field.”

When Hard transitioned from Alabama to Auburn, he joined the small fraternity of people who have seen the rivalry from both sides, a list that includes Pat Dye, Bill Oliver and Kevin Steele.

Given his limited sports upbringing, the scope of the Iron Bowl caught Hard off guard when he first experienced the epic clash in 2015.

“There’s a Rivalry Week?” Hard recalled saying leading up to the game. “I had no idea it was even a thing.”

He quickly learned.

“Everybody from both communities knows there’s something different about that game, something special,” Hard said. “This is everything for the state. It is something special that is unlike any other game we play, especially here at Jordan-Hare. There is no louder place than Jordan-Hare during an Iron Bowl. There’s nothing like that.”

Hard embraces the opportunity to work in the Tigers’ new state-of-the-art facility.

“To finally be in here to realize the potential of all the dollars, the time and the effort that the donors, Auburn Athletics and everyone has put into making this football palace,” he said. “What we’re starting to accomplish here is really exciting. It’s a blessing to be here.”

Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer