Alex Golesh ‘beyond disappointed’ with Auburn's sloppiness despite 35-point win

Most of Auburn and its fanbase will rest easy following the Tigers’ 43-8 victory over Southern Miss Saturday night.

Head coach Alex Golesh will not. There’s work to be done.

“I was so beyond disappointed in the sloppiness,” Golesh said. “I was beyond disappointed in the block in the back on the punt return. Then the fumble in the red zone. Just sloppy. I don’t care what the score is, I don’t. That’s what I just told these guys. A win is a win and winning college football games is hard, but if the standard is that and that’s what it looks like, we’re going to have a really, really long season.”

Errors were noticeable on offense, as the Tigers committed four holding penalties, a pair of false starts and an illegal formation. 

“Offensively, sloppy,” Golesh said. “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.”

One holding call cost the Tigers a 52-yard touchdown run from Byrum Brown. It’s the points left on the table that gets to Golesh.

“I want to throw up,” Golesh said. “It made me sick, to be honest with you. 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.”

Defensively, Auburn could not have started the game better. An interception returned for a touchdown on the first play of the game by Andre Jordan Jr. got the party started. However, the standard slipped in the final minutes of the first half.

Southern Miss got on the board in the form of a 14-play, 75-yard touchdown drive spanning over six minutes to close out the first half.

“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.”

Auburn’s competition only gets tougher from here. SEC play begins next week when the Tigers host Florida. If Auburn is going to open conference play with a win, the Tigers have to be more urgent.

And it begins up top with the coaching staff, according to Golesh.

“It's the urgency with which you practice,” Golesh said. “It's the little detail. Like, these holdings, does it show up in practice? We obviously correct it, but are we correcting it at a high enough level? And, obviously, the answer is no. Otherwise, it wouldn't show up in the game. But I truly believe it's all process-driven. It's how you practice. It's how you go about your work. It's the detail in which you practice. We obviously have got to coach it better. If it's showing up in the game, then it ain't getting coached well enough. And that's 100% on me.”