Auburn spent around $75,000 on an outside security firm to enforce curfews on its players last season, according to a report on Friday from AL.com, the collective website for the Birmingham News, Mobile Press-Register and Huntsville Times.
That the Tigers were using the firm was not a secret -- a report last November revealed it -- but this is the first time we've seen a dollar figure attached to the endeavor.
Bills show Auburn was charged about $77,200 by Event Operations Group (EOG), a security firm several SEC teams use for game-day operations. If Auburn paid the invoices early, there was a 3 percent discount that reduced the total to about $74,800.
The firm began monitoring curfews after center Reese Dismukes' arrest on public intoxication charges last summer, continuing a rash of off-the-field incidents under former Auburn coach Gene Chizik.
Auburn won't be spending that kind of curfew-enforcing money under new coach Gus Malzahn. The Tigers are no longer using the security firm, according to a school spokesman.
Still, Auburn has no regrets:
"While this is old news, the Auburn Athletics Department believes it was a wise expenditure at the time," Auburn said in a statement. "We'd rather have not had to spend the money, but the well-being of our student-athletes was and continues to be more important."
