Auburn head football coach Alex Golesh stepped into a program where talent was already in place. As a result, his main priority since arriving on the Plains has been focused on roster retention.
Nearly two weeks into his new role, Golesh has met with nearly every player on Auburn’s current roster. Some meetings have stretched into the early-morning hours, while others have lasted well into the night. But there’s been one common theme in all of those meetings.
“The thing that is really, really cool is every single guy that I’ve met with says, ‘I love Auburn.’ Not like, ‘yeah, it’s cool,’ but ‘I love Auburn.’ I’ve never been at a place where 100 percent of the guys say that,” Golesh said.
Coming off a 5-7 campaign – with six of the seven losses coming by one score – Auburn owned the 13th most talented roster nationally, per 247Sports’ blue-chip ratio. But the wins simply did not follow. Auburn seniors experienced just four SEC wins in Jordan-Hare Stadium since the 2022 season, while failing to win a single conference home game in 2025.
Golesh, backed by robust NIL funds (multiple reports indicate that Auburn is investing heavily into building a $30 million roster next year) is poised and positioned to bring winning football back to a program that has not logged a winning season since Gus Malzahn’s departure in 2020.
“My response to all of them is exactly the same: ‘Man, can you imagine what the hell it’s going to be when we actually win?’ If it’s that good now, holy smokes, what about when we win? Like now,” Golesh said. “And they all kind of look at you like, ‘You can do that for us?’ I can’t because I am not very fast, but you can.”
Every player on Auburn’s roster once believed they were coming to right the ship and restore the football program. They came to do so under Hugh Freeze, some with Bryan Harsin. None of them chose Golesh.
But he chose them.
“There’s nobody sitting in that team room, nobody I’ve met with that has chosen me,” Golesh said. “They chose Auburn, they chose the previous staff. But I chose them, and I’m here because I wanted to be here, and I’m here because I want to be a huge part of why we flip this thing to what people here expect it to be.”
Golesh obviously wants to bring in his own guys, as he noted on Monday that the plan moving forward will be building the roster through the high school ranks, developing players, and plugging in immediate needs through the transfer portal.
Timing could not been better for him to work on his current roster. With three days before National Signing Day after he arrived and the transfer portal window not opening until January 2, he has had the opportunity to salvage – and re-recruit – the talent already in place.
Of course, he would love to keep players like Cam Coleman, Deuce Knight, Xavier Atkins, and the rest of Auburn’s young contributors from last season.
Golesh stated that his intent is not to run anyone off, but rather to identify who truly has a desire to be at Auburn and who wants to help drive the turnaround.
Just how soon the turnaround will take place is the question on everyone’s mind. TG
