Alex Golesh cut ties with many of the overpriced players on the Auburn Tigers' books this offseason, replacing them with many of his own guys, including star quarterback Byrum Brown, from the 2025 USF Bulls.
AL.com's Andrew Hammond doesn't seem convinced that Golesh's work this offseason will translate smoothly, oddly citing the fact that he overhauled the roster as the reason why Auburn could be behind the 8-ball in 2026.
"At Auburn, the much-hyped Hugh Freeze ended like an errant tee shot, and the Tigers hired Alex Golesh, who has had to deal with a litany of exits including all three quarterbacks who played last season, and the also much-hyped 'Freeze Four' wide receiver group only has Bryce Cain remaining. What Auburn lost in players, they gained in familiarity with the Golesh staff bringing in 13 players from USF, including quarterback Byrum Brown," Hammond wrote.
"It remains to be seen how successful the Golesh regime will be, but it’s quite a gamble to overhaul a roster in this age of college football, no matter the sport."
Golesh is doing what Indiana Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti did before the 2024 season, when the national championship coach brought a core of players and several assistants to Bloomington. IU went 11-2 in their first year and won it all this past season.
The 2022 TCU Horned Frogs and 2025 Oklahoma Sooners are more examples of teams that turned it around immediately after a dramatic portal overhaul during an NIL/rev-share era campaign. Others elevated their roster from non-bowl-eligible to bowl-eligible, which is more the kind of jump AU is looking for.
Yes, it's a gamble to overhaul your roster like Golesh just did, but it's no more of a gamble than keeping unhappy underperformers like Cam Coleman and Deuce Knight would've been.
Alex Golesh inspiring confidence around Auburn
While Golesh isn't convincing some who feel Auburn is doomed to be a perpetual loser, he definitely has On3's Jake Crain convinced on his process. Crain told me earlier this month that he expects massive improvements from Hugh Freeze's locker room culture over the past three years.
Crain even evoked Nick Saban's name while explaining the expected difference.
"I think you're going to get the opposite of what we just had at Auburn. Golesh wants to mold great people, but he molds great people a different way, not through appeasement. He is going to mold them through putting them through the rigor together, having a super high standard, understanding that you're not going to reach your goals by just being talented," Crain said.
"They're going to have to earn it every single day, and you hear the term process-driven, and that's 100% true. That's why Nick Saban was the best in the world at making every Monday the same, every Tuesday the same, every Wednesday the same, every Thursday and Friday the same, and on Saturday, a lot of it was the same. You're going to go out there and rip somebody's a**, because that's just what you do on this day.
"And I think Golesh understands that. It's not about who you're playing, it's about yourself. It's not about, 'oh no, we play Bama this week, we better play good,' or 'oh, we play Mercer this week, so we can just play okay and get away with it.'
"That's not what he's going to do. It's a faceless opponent, and he is willing to be real with the players about where they stand. And at the end of the day, even to an 18- to 24-year-old, they're going to respect that more than you just telling them that it's okay and you love them regardless and here's some more NIL money."
Hard not to be excited about what experts expect from Golesh's program. Well, the experts that aren't holding it against him that he's a first-year head coach at the Power 4 level.