Quotes of Note: Alex Golesh speaks after Auburn's win against Southern Miss
The Auburn Tigers leave Jordan-Hare Stadium 2-0 with a 43-8 win over the Southern Miss Golden Eagles in Week 2 of the college football season, rushing for 343 yards throughout the game on 51 attempts and gaining two interceptions from Andre Jordan Jr.
Following the game, Head Coach Alex Golesh spoke to the media, and these are some of his most notable quotes on the night.
On the overall offensive performance:
“Offensively, sloppy. It’s not enough on the line of scrimmage. It’s holding. It’s a false start. It’s holding. We fumble it in the red zone and then it’s holding again. We had multiple drops. I don’t mean to sound negative but we finish off the first half with a bunch of missed tackles and give up a crazy drive. I was disappointed with that.”
On the urgency to not leave points and get things cleaned up:
“We’ll take the win and we’re grateful to our fans but there were so many points offensively left out there. It makes me sick. We’ll get it right. We’ll get it cleaned up, but there needs to be a sense of urgency to clean it up. As much as I felt like we had a sense of urgency this week with it, it obviously didn’t show. That’s my fault. We’ll get that right.”
On Bryce Cain’s step up and being named a captain:
“Yeah, I think naming him a captain on special teams was a credit to the way he's handled all of this. Like, it hadn't been easy for him. It hadn't been an easy couple of years for him. And he is here every morning with an incredible attitude and picks other guys around him up, which is why we got him in today on offense a little bit. We tried to do some unique things with him. He's going to continue to help us on both sides of the ball.”
On continuing to force turnovers in the second game of the year:
“Man, it was certainly a great way to start. Yeah, it was really, really positive. It helps when you get spotted seven points on the first play of the game. But, defensively, we continued to do a really good job. Obviously, you start playing better teams, and we're gonna have to continue to get better. But we practice the right way. We take the field the right way. It's the right mentality. Like I said, if I can have the last drive of the first half back—and it was truly missed tackles—you feel like it's a pretty complete game.”
On Byrum Brown’s touchdown catch:
“That was our fourth down play down there. We knew that all they had shown was man in that situation down there, and generally, when people play man, they don't have a covered quarterback. I thought Christian made it harder than he had to. He wanted to go back shoulder with it. I wish he would just throw it to him. But, really, really good job by the offense executing it at a critical time and really good job by Byrum. Like I said, it was a harder catch than it needed to be, but I don't even look at that, to be honest with you, as a trick play. I think it's just kind of part of what we do. But it was executed well. Like I said, it was our fourth down call down there inside the 5 and those guys executed it well.”
On Elijah Melendez making a strong impression early in the year:
“Elijah continues to impress. Like I said, it's a credit to his offseason. It's a credit to his mentality. I mean, we bring it up in the fourth quarter, and he's got this look in his eye. I'm like, man, this guy. Elijah's special man. He's special. He's got to continue to be special, we continue to push him to lead. I think he was really confident this week. You know, when you're young like that, you kind of build confidence as it goes and he was individually confident—I think recognized by his teammates that way. He's got incredible leadership ability and it's because his process is so high end. But really proud of him. We've got to continue to push him to lead. When you can have leadership on top of a high, high-end group of players in there through the middle of your defense, it's a big, big thing for him to be able to communicate the way he does.”
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