The Auburn Tigers have less than 14 days until the kick off of the 2026 season against the Baylor Bears in Atlanta, and the preparation for the game is happening in a way that has been with Head Coach Alex Golesh for a long time.
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The Tigers are labeling this week prior to game week as a mock game week, going through the routine of what the team will do next week and acting like there is a game on Saturday.
In Golesh’s conference with the media on Monday at the Woltosz Football Performance Center, he talked a little bit about the history of it, but broke it down to say it was a “dress rehearsal” of what Auburn will do in preparing to take the field on Saturdays.
“It’s a dress rehearsal of a week,” Golesh said. “I’ve stressed to our guys that it needs to look like a normal week and figure out everything from when am I watching film? When am I watching film with the coaches? When do I take a nap in the middle of the day if I’m a nap guy? We want it to be ironed out.”
Golesh said the process of a mock game week has been going on for a while throughout his career, remembering even back to 2008 in his time as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma State with Mike Gundy.
Golesh said Gundy did not like the way things turned out on the opening week on that season and he learned that it may be easier to set the preparation plan straight sooner before the opener.
One of the big things in that process is consistency, as Golesh wants his players to get their routines straight so that they can operate in that fashion every week.
“The worst thing I think you can do from a player perspective is just having consistency one week, it looks like this, the next week it looks like this and then I can’t quite (focus as well),” Golesh said. “We put all that together to what your process looks like, and then you wonder why am I performing at a certain level one week and not the next?”
It has been a learning curve though, as it is everybody in the porgram’s first time going through the game preparation process together as one unit.
As a result, everybody, from the coaches to the players, is still figuring out what that looks like. Golesh is challenging them though to make it feel as ordinary as possible.
“The challenge to the players is make it feel as normal as you can and we will do the same in terms of how we practice,” Golesh said. “For the coaches, especially in year one, what does a prep week really look like? For a morning practice, you’re up against it a little bit, like this morning on the field. That means last night was a long night to get ready for this morning and then same thing until tomorrow into Wednesday… You’re losing compared to an afternoon practice.”
In the same way he has challenged the players, Golesh has also challenged the coaches to truly make this week feel like a game week, not like a mock week.
Golesh does not want their guard to be let down just because the team does not have a game that counts on Saturday.
“I’ve challenged our coaches to, don’t treat it like a mock,” Golesh said. “We treat it like a normal game week, because what happens sometimes is you treat it like a mock week and it’s like, ‘We’ll just get to that next week or we’ll just put in a bunch and then we’ll come back.’ It could be detrimental in a lot of ways… I think it’s just a culmination.”
Despite the Tigers not playing a game on Saturday, Auburn will still go out and simulate game situations in a practice.
Golesh said that the team will work through scenarios that happen in a real game, including substitutions, special teams transitions, turnover transistions, sub packages and more
The mock game week is something Golesh thinks will help the program, and something he thinks the Tigers need as the Baylor game nears.
“We need it, we need it as a staff,” Golesh said. “I think as you get further and further into a program, you probably need that less and less, but we need it as a staff—purely communication, offense, defense, special teams all over.”
Auburn Undercover is an independent Auburn sports media company covering Auburn athletics, recruiting and insider news.
