AUBURN, Ala. – Adding 40 new players in his first two months on the job, Auburn coach Alex Golesh said the roster overhaul process would make for a compelling documentary.
“It was a fascinating month and a half,” Golesh told reporters Wednesday at the Woltosz Center. “We brought the right guys in.”
Blending experience with youth and production with potential, Golesh thanked Auburn’s compliance, academics and admissions staffs for working overtime to process the large influx.
“The one thing I’ll tell you is that football is very important here,” he said.
Among the newcomers, 13 have followed Golesh to the Plains from South Florida, including 11 former USF offensive players now wearing orange and blue.
“For those 13 to say, ‘He’s got us, just trust him,’” Golesh said. “That, I would tell you, is absolutely priceless. That proof of concept I continue to talk about, they’ve seen it.
“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 hopes the Tampa Thirteen can help his staff quickly establish credibility with Auburn’s returners and new players.
“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 headlines the incoming Tigers, after becoming one of only 12 Division-I quarterbacks in NCAA history to throw for 3,000 or more yards and rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season.
“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 counry.”
With the transfer portal now closed, the Tigers are focused on the 2027 recruiting class, targeting elite high school prospects and relying on relentlessness to overcome a late start.
“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.”
In his message to recruits, Golesh outlines the opportunity to restore Auburn to the SEC’s upper echelon.
“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.”
Even in the revenue share and NIL era, Golesh says compensation is not the only deciding factor.
“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 and wraps up with the A-Day game April 18 at 2 p.m. CT.
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on X: @jeff_shearer