The Auburn Tigers have fallen to 2-1 on the young season after dropping their SEC opener 44-39 to the Florida Gators on Saturday night.
It was the first time that the two sides have played since 2019, and the first time in Jordan-Hare Stadium since 2011. With the result in Week 3, the Gators have won back-to-back games in the series.
After the game, Auburn Head Coach Alex Golesh spoke to the media on his thoughts of the loss, touching on some areas of concern from the game.
Here are some of Golesh’s most notable quotes from the night’s action following the defeat.
On what the story of the game was:
“The story of the game—you tie it at 17, and we give up 17 unanswered between the middle of the second quarter and the end of the second quarter there and more than halfway into the third quarter.”
Three offensive plays and 17 points later, now you're in a dog fight to try to claw back and you can't run offense the way you want to call it. The story of the game was that middle part of it—and then defensively, the explosives. The double pass was a dagger. The explosives given up, I don't know how many that was, but it felt like it was at inopportune times.”
On the defense being on the field so long:
“We can't put our defense out there as much as we did if you want to win the game.”
You saw the ramifications of that in the beginning of the third quarter. We've got to be way better. We will be. I believe in these dudes. I think we got the right guys; l know we've got the right people in that locker room. I believe we're going to go fight back, but we'll find out.”
On the slow starts to drive as it relates to Byrum Brown:
“We spend a lot of time on how do we start it. We've taken a lot of pride in feeling like we know what's happening and starting it fast. I thought we had a really good plan. Obviously, we didn't. I think that's more on me than it is anybody else. I've got to do a better job of figuring it out with, specifically, getting him going. I thought his process was high-end through the week, and I thought it was today, going in. That's more on me than anything else. I've got to do a better job of giving him an opportunity to get going. It's the first-down inefficiency for us in general today. And, really, that was almost the whole game. It's the inability to run it or throw it there on first down to get yourself in second-and-manageable.”
On not trying to grind it out on the ground to start the second half:
“Man, I think maybe selfishly a little bit. I say selfishly. Maybe greedy would be the word of trying to create a chunk to get it going. And I have a lot of faith in our ability to create these shot plays. I've got a lot of faith in Byrum. I've got a lot of faith in the wideouts. I think we can continue to grow offensively on the O-line. If you feel like you're already going to be in third-and-manageable, take the chunk there.”
On the physicality of the team:
“There were times where we were as physical as physical gets, and I think there were times where—hard without watching the film to tell you the truth on that. There’s time we needed some knockback, some of those third and shorts, fourth and shorts, we didn’t create it. Then there were times I thought we were physical. I thought there were scenarios on the perimeter where we got to set an edge, and we didn't. I also thought there were times we were getting checks. Half of us had it, half of us didn't, which is, again, it's a coaching deal. It's a composure deal. So it'd be hard for me to answer truly the physicality. One of the big-time keys to winning, really, of all three sides of the ball was to be more violent than the guys that we’re playing. I would tell you at times we were, and then I thought there were times that we were certainly not.”
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