Stateline, NV -- In anticipation of the 2026 American Century Championship this weekend, I got the chance to speak with Auburn Tigers legend DeMarcus Ware at The Caesars Celebrity Pro-Am on Wednesday. The former seven-time All-Pro Dallas Cowboys EDGE and Super Bowl champion on the Denver Broncos is one of 90 celebrities in NBC's annual golf tournament from the Edgewood Tahoe Resort in Stateline, Nevada. The 37th iteration of the event will stream on NBC, NBC Sports Network, and Peacock from this Friday to Sunday (July 10-12). Charles Barkley will be one of the main stars of the event, as always, despite having the longest odds to win the tournament (+750000).
Let me back up a second, here. When I say Auburn Tigers, I mean Auburn High School. AU never offered Ware, just like they never offered fellow Auburn high legend Osi Umenyiora, who also went to Troy. Umenyiora advocated for Ware to join the Trojans, and the two showed AU how big a mistake it was not to offer them over the course of their collegiate and NFL careers.
When I asked Ware about the Alex Golesh hiring, he mentioned the fact that he doesn't closely follow AU football because of the non-offer. Still, he provided a thoughtful answer about the very involved hiring process that it took for the Tigers to land on Golesh.
"You know what? I don't even follow the university. I'm from Auburn. They didn't offer a scholarship. So if you ask me anything about Troy University, I can tell you. About the coaching and everything," Ware said initially.
"I just know that Auburn University, what they do for the community, what they mean for Auburn, just in general, the whole Lee County area, it's amazing. When you get a new coach, it's like getting a new politician. Someone new comes in, who's going to create so much change in what they're doing. So I think that the new culture -- I don't know anything about it -- but I know that there was a huge process getting to it, just bringing (Golesh) on. It's gonna be a change, because once they make a change, everybody has to change."
Let's hope that change includes a higher level of accountability than Hugh Freeze had. So far, it certainly seems like Golesh is not going soft on his locker room. Golesh's dismissal of receiver Duke Smith speaks to that. Perhaps the results on the field will follow, though Tiger fans have been saying that for a while.
DeMarcus Ware played WR in high school and only received 1 Division I scholarship offer from Troy
As Ware revealed on the "OutKick 360" podcast in February 2023, Troy was his only offer coming out of high school. Ware weighed 185 pounds and was a receiver who was, as we now know, playing out of position.
“I didn’t know what recruitment was,” Ware said. “I had one school that offered me a scholarship, which was Troy University. I ran like a 4.7. I was a 185-pound wide receiver coming out. And they said, ‘DeMarcus, when you get to Troy, we’re going to put you at defensive end.’ At the time, they were Division I-AA, so we played a lot of the Jacksonville States, the Alabama States, the Alabama A&Ms. So we played those small teams, so me being at 195 was normal.
“But it just got to a point where I got that scholarship, and we started playing these big schools like Marshall and Missouri, and I’m like, ‘I can’t play Nebraska at 185. Are you kidding me?’ And so, lo and behold, I grew 3 inches, and I gained 50 pounds in four years and ran a 4.3. So that was genetics plus being able to get on the right program at the right time.”
Ware used the hurt of being passed over by Auburn and every other FBS school besides Troy, which was entering its first season in the FBS at the time, and transformed it into fuel for a Hall of Fame career in the NFL.
It all worked out in the end, though AU probably wishes it could get a mulligan for passing up on him over two and a half decades ago.
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