AUBURN, Ala. – Known as Coach Geo in the weightroom, Auburn director of football performance George Courides quickly said yes when head coach Alex Golesh invited Courides to join him on the Plains.
“It didn’t take very long,” said Courides, who first worked with Golesh for three seasons at Iowa State before spending the past three with him at South Florida. “It was pretty exciting. Not only is he an unbelievable coach and leader, he’s one of my closest friends. To see his leadership the past three years at USF and how incredible it is to work for him, it didn’t take much convincing to come to a place like this.”
In January, Courides will begin implementing his program during winter workouts.
“Developing this high-performance model where strength and conditioning, athletic training and nutrition are all working together for these guys,” Courides said. “Holding them accountable to the training standard, their body weights and taking care of their bodies, and be arguably the best in the country at what we do.
“Developing a model that helps guys be the best they can on Saturday and each day, watch their bodies develop and turn into what we know they can.”
Courides first got into weight training as an 11-year-old, working out with his dad after work in their basement gym.
“I always loved working out, I always loved training,” he said. “I’ve always had a passion for it, even through middle school and high school, I loved working out.”
Thanks to Geo’s wife, Chloe, that passion became a profession.
“After college I was teaching, coaching and running a weight room,” he recalled. “It was my wife who told me, ‘Hey, you love this. Why don’t you go back and get your master’s in exercise science and go be a strength coach?’
“I have to give her all the credit in the world for where we are right now because she’s literally the one who put me on this career path. There’s not a day where I’m not so grateful and so happy to come to work. I truly love what I do.”
A Pennsylvania native, Courides played rugby in college at East Stroudsburg State.
“Rugby taught me a lot,” he said. “It’s important not only to prepare and train the right way for the sport but how to take care of your body during that time as well.
“That’s something we’ll teach the guys. There’ll be a why behind everything they do. We had decent success (at USF) not only developing guys but also their health throughout the year.”
A two-year internship with the NFL’s New York Jets allowed Courides to learn from one his mentors, Justus Galac.
“He had a very similar program to what we’re going to do here, “Courides said. “The biggest thing I learned was those guys still need to train hard.
“In the NFL, the guys who had the most success, it had nothing to do with where they came from or how many stars they were. It was which guys learned to be pros early in their college career. How did they take care of their bodies? Were they on time for everything? Did they put a lot of emphasis in the film room?”
That experience informed Courides’ message to the student-athletes he trains.
“Let’s learn to be a pro early so when you get that opportunity it’s not a whirlwind and you know what your daily process is,” he said.
To help implement his program at Auburn, Courides is bringing director of applied science Terrence “TK” Kennell and associate director of football performance Frank Failace with him from USF.
“Frank is someone I lean on heavily when it comes to programming in the weight room,” said Courides of Failace, who also interned with the Jets. “He’s a brilliant mind and he’s one of those guys who always pushes me to say we can do a little bit more.”
Kennell joined Courides’ strength staff at USF before Golesh’s first season in 2023, having worked in football, basketball, rugby, soccer and baseball.
“He has this incredible world of knowledge,” Courides said. “To me, he’s the best in the country. He’s changed the way we’ve adapted to adding different pieces of technology. He’s a huge emphasis for our return to play guys when it comes to their field work. Once they’re in his hands, I know they’re going to be fine.”
For a process-centered head coach like Golesh, the next several months of strength and conditioning work under the leadership of Coach Geo will be vitally important to the success Auburn hopes to achieve in 2026.
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on X: @jeff_shearer