It all happened very quickly.

Auburn Athletic Director Jay Jacobs telephoned head baseball coach Tom Slater around 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The two men met shortly thereafter.

The meeting ended, both men said, with a mutual agreement, Slater would resign his post, ending his AU tenure. An official announcement would wait until after Saturday’s season finale against LSU.

Moments after freshman slugger Hunter Morris’ strikeout ended the game, an 11-7 LSU win, the news began to spread.

Slater met with his players in their locker room for about 10 minutes after the game.

After that meeting, an emotional Slater assessed his four years at the head of Auburn’s program.

“Bottom line, we needed to win more games,” he said. “The record speaks for itself.”

Slater was 115-113 in four seasons at Auburn and 43-77 in Southeastern Conference play. The Tigers didn’t have a winning season in the SEC and never finished better than ninth in the conference standings.

This season, Auburn was 28-28 and 11-19 in the SEC. The Tigers haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2005 — Slater’s first season — and haven’t made the SEC Tournament since 2003.

“Wins and losses is what it boils down to,” Jacobs said. “We have a great tradition here in baseball and we’ve got to find a coach to get us to the next level.”

Slater was hired after the 2004 season, replacing Steve Renfroe. Jacobs said that despite Slater’s record, he had improved the program.

“He’s built a foundation here,” Jacobs said. “He left it better than he found it.”

Slater declined to evaluate his performance in those terms.

“I’m not the coach anymore,” he said. “That’s for someone else to judge.”

But Slater, who was an Auburn assistant coach from 1995-2000, said he had only positive feelings for AU.

“I wish I’d been able to win more games for Auburn University,” he said. “This is a great university. This is a storied baseball program.

“I’ll be rooting for Auburn no matter where I am, unless I’m playing against them.”

The financial terms of Slater’s departure are unknown. Slater had one year remaining on his contract, with a scheduled base salary of $130,000; had he been fired, the school would have been obligated to buy out the contract. Jacobs said AU “will certainly honor” Slater’s contract.

Jacobs said the school’s search for a new baseball coach would begin immediately.

“In baseball, here at Auburn, we feel like we should compete at the highest level,” he said. “We’ll be looking for a coach to take us to that next level.”

Auburn has retained the Gainesville, Fla.-based search firm of Carr and Associates to assist in the search. Carr also assisted in the school’s 2004 search for an athletic director, which ended with the promotion of Jacobs, who previously headed the athletic department’s fundraising arm.

Slater’s next step is less clear. When asked what the future held for him, the coach kept his answer simple.

“Well, it’s going to hold dinner with my family in a few hours,” he said. “After that, we’ll see.”

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