The term that continues to be heard around the football facility week in and week out is consistency. It is something that is drilled into everyone affiliated with Auburn’s football program.
Two-thirds of the way through year one of the Alex Golesh era, it has not translated onto the field often enough. Golesh spoke about that disconnect today in his weekly press conference.
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“Games in this league are won in moments,” Golesh said. “You have to go take advantage of the moment. Whether that’s off of a turnover, you gotta go score. Whether that’s the ability to put a drive together or the ability on third-and-1 to go get a stop, it’s not consistent enough.”
The Tigers have had stretches where one side of the ball will play their best game, but the other side falls short.
Golesh feels a lot of the inconsistencies have come from the team getting tired and a lack of depth built.
“You got to count on every single guy on the roster to be able to provide something there and that our dudes will go fight,” Golesh said.
Regarding the fatigue variable, Offensive Coordinator Joel Gordon says it is a balancing act to prevent it from happening.
He said the coaches have to push the players hard without burning them out before the game is even played.
“I’ve been with AG for four years now,” Gordon said. “We’re going to practice hard and try to create the mindset and mentality that we want to have in this program. Just balancing that. We as coaches have to a good job at that.”
The last two games, the defense allowed the games to get away on the scoreboard. That is something Auburn did not let happen in its biggest win of the year against Georgia.
Defensive Coordinator DJ Durkin says the message of consistency goes far beyond the field.
“You create consistency with their process everyday,” Durkin said. “How you show up ready for meetings? How we show up here in the mornings? Guys being consistent with their energy and approach. All those little things create consistency day-to-day which will lead to consistency on Saturday.”
The last two weeks have also seen a lack of response by Durkin’s unit when things began to trend in a negative direction. In losses to Florida and Tennessee earlier in the year, the defense was able to recover and keep those contests competitive.
Against LSU and Ole Miss, however, that did not happen. The defense continued to hemorrhage yards and points once those offenses started rolling.
Durkin talked about trying to find that response factor this week against Arkansas.
“The part for us and for me as coaches, just say we know that’s in there, our guys have that,” Durkin said. “We gotta tap into it and keep bringing that out of them. We gotta draw back on those moments when we’ve had proper response. We do know what it looks like, we do know what it is to do it, alright let’s draw back on that and let’s go do it.”
Golesh hopes the standard he has set for his team will be revealed in these final four weeks.
This week will certainly be a test of whether his players continue to have confidence in the process above the results, especially when the last two results have been as one-sided as they have.
“You want to see it in results on the field,” Golesh said. “There have been times this year where you’ve seen it, there have been times when you haven’t. I’m evaluating our everyday process, I’m evaluating every single part of it to make sure we are giving these guys the tools to go lead, be successful.”
Auburn has lost the last two meetings against Arkansas at home. Their last win was in the rain in 2020, when the Tigers benefited from a missed spike fumble call by quarterback Bo Nix, which allowed Anders Carlson to kick the game winning field goal in the waning seconds.
Auburn leads the overall series 21-13-1. The Tigers and Razorbacks kick it off Saturday at 11:45 a.m. inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Auburn Undercover is an independent Auburn sports media company covering Auburn athletics, recruiting and insider news.
