The Auburn Tigers were barely mentioned in an outlook of the 2026/2027 CFP picture from ESPN's Heather Dinich. Auburn was name-dropped once, but it was in one of the most disrespectful ways possible.
Dinich listed 31 teams that have a realistic chance of making the CFP, which, of course, didn't include the Tigers. The only time Dinich did mention Auburn was questioning whether or not the orange and blue would even be a quality win for the Alabama Crimson Tide if Kalen DeBoer's team had a similar record to last year (10-3 after a 28-7 SEC Championship Game loss to the Georgia Bulldogs).
"Alabama overcame three losses last year. It overcame a bad loss to a 5-7 Florida State team. But it also had four straight wins against ranked opponents at the time (Georgia, Vandy, Mizzou and Tennessee). Bama might not face a ranked opponent until Oct. 10 against Georgia, and there's no guarantee that the majority of teams in the back half of the schedule will finish in the CFP top 25. Texas A&M and LSU should, but Tennessee, Vandy and Auburn are more uncertain. If Alabama has a similar season to last year -- without as many statement wins -- the committee probably won't be as forgiving," Dinich wrote.
According to one of ESPN's lead college football voices, when it comes to the CFP, there isn't much of a need to pay attention to what happens on the Plains.
Alex Golesh needs to make Auburn relevant again
In an article containing 4,858 words, only one of them was "Auburn." The only reason why Dinich mentioned Auburn was to discuss the quality of a win over the Tigers by its biggest rival. The possibility of a loss wasn't even on the table. Just a mention that Auburn won't make the CFP rankings' top 25.
That cannot continue being the case when it comes to Alex Golesh's program. It wasn't Golesh who created this irrelevance. But it is his problem to fix it. $44.25 million is a pretty payday, but Golesh has an extremely difficult job ahead of him.
It's just not as hard of a job as his two predecessors made it seem.
Auburn has to establish itself right away against Baylor and Florida
The Tigers are jumping right into the thick of it with their first nine-game SEC slate. The Florida Gators at Jordan-Hare Stadium figure to be a tall task in Week 3. With Week 1 moving to Atlanta for the Aflac Kickoff Game, the Baylor Bears become a little bit more of a test.
There's no way around it. Golesh has to come in hot and win to make outlets like ESPN believe Auburn is a different program under his watch.
Beating Baylor as a big favorite is expected, but it still needs to happen. Knocking off Jon Sumrall, after he passed on the Tigers job, would be a great way to establish credibility. That game is Sumrall's SEC debut, and it comes against a program he upset last year while with the USF Bulls.
Golesh knows what he needs to do over the next few months. While he's at it, Golesh could show his team the only mention ESPN had of the Tigers in its CFP prediction piece to give them extra motivation.
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