Since the moment that Alex Golesh arrived on the Plains to be the head coach of the Auburn Tigers, he has preached a few things daily—being physical, having mindset and having identity.
Through the last nine months, those things have been at the forefront of Auburn’s preparation, and Saturday in Atlanta was their first opportunity to showcase that to the college football world.
However, the Tigers’ 17-16 season-opening win over the Baylor Bears did not present all the sunshines and rainbows that the coaching staff hoped it would, as Golesh did not hesitate in saying there was a lot the team needed to work on within the next week.
The game did serve as a progression though, one Golesh enjohyed seeing.
“We took a giant step in terms of our identity,” Golesh said. “If we are going to stay connected and we're going to go finish football games in the fourth quarter and that's our identity, I'll take it, but I thought it was a step.”
In a battle of timely defensive plays and offenses who got close to momentum but could not push through, there were a number of flustering moments on both sidelines.
It was determination though, that unified the Auburn team.
“Today what I saw was a team that played together,” Golesh said. “Defense would get a stop, come over to the offense, ‘Man, we got you.’ Offense would have to punt, ‘Hey, we've got to get the ball back for the offense,’ from the defense.”
Through all of the practice on schemes, plays and technique, it can be easy to not let any focus be put on the other aspects of the game.
Golesh made it a point though to make sure that his players operated as a team, always operating as a unit and never in individual solitude.
“It's probably the hardest thing to do in college football right now,” Golesh said. “I'm not saying we are perfect, but I saw a bunch of dudes that played for each other. I saw a bunch of dudes that genuinely love each other. They picked each other up.”
Walking away from this game, Golesh does not fully know if the Tigers were the most violent team on the field overall. One thing he does admit to though is they were tough from a mental perspective.
To the head coach, Auburn took each drive as it came and moved forward with the outcome, not letting the past circumstances define what the future would look like.
“I talked about this next-play mentality on both sides of the ball. I thought they did that,” Golesh said. “There was plenty of opportunity offensively for sure to be like, ‘come on,’ or defensively if like, man, we keep fourth down stop, fourth down, stop, turnover, like where are the points? Never saw it. Didn't see it in the locker room.”
That showed after Eric Winters gave up the touchdown to make it 17-16 to Gavin Freeman and then went full out to tackle Matthew Klopfenstein just before the goal line to win the game, or when Xavier Atkins and Elijah Melendez continuously made big plays and went on to elevate their teammates.
The game overall allowed Golesh to walk off the field and reflect on the Tigers’ identity, seeing where they could improve and build over the next week.
“I was wondering that walking off the field,” Golesh said. “Is that who we are?... Like if that's our identity, then we took a step. It's week one. It's a long season, but it was a step.”
No matter how all over the place the game was, Golesh and Auburn are glad they can return home and prepare being 1-0.
He is more happy though that they did it playing “a good football team,” making for a lot of helpful learning moments.
“I'm so happy that we got to play a good football team to where we can coach off of it, and I'm glad we won too, but that we could coach off of it and say, ‘Man, like, it's only going to be better,’” Golesh said. “So humble yourself enough to get your butt coached, and I do believe that we will.”
Auburn Undercover is an independent Auburn sports media company covering Auburn athletics, recruiting and insider news.
