Auburn Tigers head coach Alex Golesh has won the offseason. The Auburn Family is certainly sick of hearing that, but when you look at the confidence he's inspired despite a massive loss of transfers, it's hard not to believe it.
CBS Sports' John Talty believes the Tigers have a strong chance of hitting the over and Las Vegas oddsmakers' 6.5 win total for the 2026 season. Of course, AU hasn't won seven games since the 2019 season, Gus Malzahn's penultimate campaign on the Plains.
"New head coach Alex Golesh and quarterbackByrum Brownshould bring some juice to a program that never met expectations under Hugh Freeze. There is enough talent on the roster for improvements in 2026, but the slate is challenging. Still, I like Auburn to get to seven wins and a bowl," Talty wrote.
To be clear, that's seven wins and a bowl. Under Golesh, Talty isn't writing off eight wins with transfers he's brought over from the USF Bulls during his debut season in East Central Alabama. That's a high bar from the jump.
Imagine what he can do by recruiting and game-planning at a bare minimum level one would expect from an SEC head coach.
Bryan Harsin and Hugh Freeze were embarrassing for Auburn
That there were positive on-field aspects during Bryan Harsin and Hugh Freeze's tenures speaks to how strong the roster inherited from Malzahn was for the former, and how good the defensive coaching staff and recruiting was for the latter.
Harsin simply didn't do important in-state relationship-building on the recruiting trail, while Freeze's obsessive golf habit might have undermined his leadership in the locker room, establishing a slacker culture, and kept him from focusing on game-planning, since he didn't fully entrust Derrick Nix to call plays.
Golesh is in such a good place to come in, do his job, honor the Auburn Creed with work, hard work, and win football games. The expectations at AU have sadly never been lower.