TAMPA, Florida – After hearing hundreds of answers to questions thrown throughout the halls and rooms of the JW Marriott, the doors have now shut on SEC Media Days from Tampa, Florida.
The Auburn Tigers took center stage on Tuesday, July 21, with head coach Alex Golesh participating in the media days for the first time as head coach alongside quarterback Byrum Brown, defensive back Champ Anthony and kicker Alex McPherson.
As a lot of new takes over the Plains with Golesh entering as the head man and a number of new staff members and players come along as well, Auburn fans are beginning to form their own opinions on what they think of the 2026 program.
With the end of media days having come along, here are Auburn Undercover’s five takeaways as fall camp nears on Aug. 5.
PHSYICAL OFFSEASON CREATES CLOSE BONDS
Ever since Golesh arrived on the Plains after being named to be the head coach, he has preached one word over and over again, whether it be to the players, media or fans—identity. Specifically that identity has been to be a physical and violent football team that will ultimately be player led at a certain point.
The process to achieving that identity has been pushed from day one, as Golesh said the winter workouts to get ready for the spring were hard on purpose.
“Talk about a six-month buildup, we went through an incredibly hard winter,” Golesh said. “We made it hard intentionally. We pushed as hard as you can to the limit to get ourselves ready for spring. We went through a long, long, long hard spring. Talk to our players, and they would tell you it was about as hard as anything they’ve gone through, as it needed to be.”
With a lot of players becoming new teammates with each other, getting them to have a close connection was something Golesh harped on more than other areas of need.
As the Tigers have slowly neared their season-opening game in week one against the Baylor Bears, Golesh continued to make things difficult in the summer as workouts rolled on.
However, Golesh sits back understanding that winning before the season begins will pay dividends for Auburn coming out victorious when it actually matters.
“The summer was about, yeah, getting physically, mentally stronger, bigger, faster, but as much as anything else, is the ability for us to connect as a team,” Golesh said. “As you put together 115 guys that haven’t been together and a brand new staff, the ability to connect and work through things and get to know each other is the difference of how the season ends up playing out.”
CONFIDENCE IN BYRUM BROWN’S ABILITIES
After a year that featured Jackson Arnold, Ashton Daniels and Deuce Knight taking the field under center, someone new is taking the field for the Tigers.
Shortly after Golesh was named to be the head coach at Auburn, his former quarterback at USF, Byrum Brown, hit the transfer portal and soon chose to follow suit. With his coach knowing him better than most anybody coming in, he is happy with the man Brown has become.
“Byrum Brown represents everything that’s right about Auburn football and the identity that we’re building, Golesh said. “The kid that showed up in Auburn and said, ‘Man, what do we got to do to go win?’ makes obviously me feel good.”
Brown threw 226 for 341 for 3,158 yards, 28 touchdowns and seven interceptions in his 2025 season at USF, and after a stellar season with the Bulls, Golesh has confidence that his quarterback will come in and do the same thing on the Plains.
“Byrum has just got to be him,” Golesh said. “The confidence that he is going to be the best version of him every single day should give confidence to everybody around him, players, coaches, support staff. Ultimately, if he’s the best version of him every single day, we’ll get to where we’ve got to get to on the field.”
Brown himself echoes the sentiment that his confidence has grown this offseason.
Now, as fall camp and the first game both near, Brown is itching to play another defense because of how well the Tigers defense has played in practice.
“I can’t wait to go on Saturdays and play against another defense, because they give us some looks that are fun at times and not fun at times,” Brown said. “I think going against the best defense in the country helps you build confidence every single day.”
PREPARING FOR QUICK PACE
A growing trend in college football has presented teams running a hurry-up offense and playing with serious tempo. For Auburn, that has been a normality, and there is an expectation that Golesh’s offense will continue that style.
Professional Football Focus recently did a study that ranked the Tigers as having the second-fastet offense in the country only behind West Virginia. The stat comes as a result of Golesh helping run his offenses that way at both USF and Tennessee, and he says there is a reason for continuing it at Auburn.
“I think what’s fascinating about college football, and specifically our league, you look at our schedule, our out-of-conference and certainly in the SEC, half of our schedule you’re playing teams that are, at least going into the season, that are playing with a high level of tempo.”
The offense has already been bringing that to practices, and in a sense, it is helping DJ Durkin’s defense prepare for what they are going to see down the road.
From a conditioning standpoint, preparing in that fashion certainly helps, and Golesh hopes it benefits the Tigers come Saturdays.
“For our defense to be able to go play against our offense every single spring practice, every single fall camp practice and then the ability to wind it back when you have to I think is way easier than the inverse of that,” Golesh said. “For Durkin, that defensive staff, it’s the best thing that you could possibly have is being able to see that in practice every single day and having answers.”
SETTING STANDARDS
Golesh was asked multiple times on Tuesday in various interviews about what he thinks a successful first year looks like.
While at USF, he faced multiple powerhouse programs, including when he took Alabama to the brink twice in Tampa and Tuscaloosa, beat Florida on the road and lost to Miami. While he has shown signs of partial success, that is not part of Golesh's goals. In fact, he has not really set any to begin with.
“I don’t set goals,” Golesh said. “I set standards. We set standards as a program. Our standard is to be the ebay versions of us every single day. The standard when I got to Auburn was to get as good as we possibly can as fast as we can.”
Those ideas all tie back to the idea of identity, something Golesh has been preaching since the time he stepped off the plane in Auburn.
Golesh wants to make that a reality, reaching the standard that the Tigers have maintained a stable identity.
“I think a successful year one as I mentioned earlier is if we can leave year one and have a foundation of who we are, our identity, proof of concept offensively, defensively, so we can continue to recruit to that identity,” Golesh said.
There were a lot of topics that Golesh could have touched on in order to fully explain how Auburn can be successful in year one of this new era, like beating ranked opponents or being more physical.
Golesh put it bluntly though—it is winning on Saturdays.
“This is a really, really, talented league with elite players and elite coaches,” Golesh said. “So what wins football games? The teams that can play on Saturdays and score one more point than the other because they have a true identity of who they are.
CREATING CHANCES TO MAKE BIG PLAYS
Prior to being the head coach at USF, Golesh spent time as the offensive coordinator for Josh Heupel at Tennessee, where he became known for helping develop big-gain plays.
With a number of weapons from USF that followed him to the players that stayed at Auburn like Jeremiah Cobb and Bryce Cain, Golesh is harping on making sure the offense knows who it needs to get the ball to.
“Offensive football is about finding matchups in space,” Golesh said. “As we’ve evolved offensively and as we have to continue to evolve offensively, we’ve got to use these next three weeks once we get into camp to truly figure out who are our playmakers, put them in the best positions to create the best matchups and do it really, really fast.”
It is not just in the pass game though that the offense is needing to find ways to make explosive plays.
The Tigers have had a history of solid running backs like Tre Mason, Kerryon Johnson and Tank Bigsby in recent years. Golesh said this offense needs to continue striving to have the running backs being successful.
“For us, everything starts with the ability to run the football, and it sets up everything else,” Golesh said. “It’s the players in the right formations to then be able to create explosive (plays), because the matchups and the space allows you to do so. It’s on us to put them in the right positions and on the guys to go execute at a high clip.”
As Auburn charges ahead towards its week one game against Baylor in Atlanta, that is one of the biggest standards Golesh says the Tigers have to reach so they can manipulate the gameplan accordingly before the big parts of the schedule arrive.
“We are going to need every single day of those three weeks of camp to get ready for Baylor to be able to identify that and then detail it out,” Golesh said.
