Auburn football coach Alex Golesh has added 40 new players to the roster in his first two months, a process he described as noteworthy. “It was a fascinating month and a half,” Golesh said Wednesday at the Woltosz Center. “We brought the right guys in.”
Golesh credited Auburn’s compliance, academics, and admissions departments for their efforts in handling the influx of new athletes. He emphasized the importance of football at Auburn, stating, “The one thing I’ll tell you is that football is very important here.”
Of the newcomers, 13 previously played under Golesh at South Florida, with 11 being former USF offensive players now joining Auburn. Golesh said this group’s trust in him is significant: “For those 13 to say, ‘He’s got us, just trust him,’” he said. “That, I would tell you, is absolutely priceless. That proof of concept I continue to talk about, they’ve seen it.”
He also highlighted what it takes to be part of Auburn’s program: “The level of accountability that is required to play football here. The level of discipline that is required to play football here. The level of work ethic that’s required to play football here. The type of human being you have to be to play here.”
Golesh believes these former USF players can help build trust within the team more quickly than usual: “The time it takes to build trust and build relationships within a football program, that takes years a lot of the time,” he said. “These guys can accelerate it by saying, ‘Hey, trust him.’ When it’s one of your peers telling you that, it’s a lot easier to gain that trust. It definitely creates a level of trust that makes it a lot easier to then go ahead and teach from there.”
Senior quarterback Byrum Brown leads this group after achieving over 3,000 passing yards and more than 1,000 rushing yards in one season—an accomplishment matched by only 12 Division-I quarterbacks in NCAA history. Golesh commented on Brown’s decision: “That’s a young man that chased this opportunity in the sense that he wanted to play on the biggest stage, knowing that he’s an NFL player who felt like he needed one more year at the highest level to get where he wanted to go in terms of draft stock,” Golesh said. “He knows he’ll be prepared for the moment. That’s where his confidence will be in himself, knowing he’s worked maybe as hard as anybody in the country.”
With transfer activities concluded for now, Auburn is turning its attention toward recruiting high school prospects for its 2027 class despite getting started later than some competitors. Golesh explained their approach: “Get into some fights that I didn’t know we could get into, but we have,” Golesh said. “We’ve got a great jump start to ’27. I think we recruit at a high level because we work harder than everybody in the country at developing the relationships, and you can catch up in that way.”
Golesh pitches recruits on helping restore Auburn’s status among top Southeastern Conference programs: “This is one of the most historic blue blood programs in the history of college football,” he said. “You come be the reason to get us back. It’s been as simple as that.”
Addressing changes brought by revenue sharing and NIL deals across college sports programs nationwide (https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2023/7/19/nil-resources.aspx), Golesh noted financial compensation isn’t everything for today’s athletes: “The thing that’s not changed and doesn’t get talked about enough is that young men still crave a relationship, a level of accountability, still crave development,” he said. “There’s something about playing in front of 88,000 every week and being in a place like Auburn where football is really important.”
Auburn begins spring practice March 17 with its annual A-Day game scheduled for April 18.
