Auburn just smashed Southern Miss 43-8, and quarterback Byrum Brown finally looked like his old self. He bounced back from a painful three-interception night in Week 1 to account for three touchdowns in front of the home crowd. But head coach Alex Golesh was not celebrating. Even after starting the season 2-0, Golesh admitted that watching his team commit simple mistakes on the field literally made him sick.

The Tigers had opened their campaign in Atlanta with a nerve-wracking 17-16 win over Baylor. That night, Brown struggled, throwing three picks under pressure. Golesh did not throw his quarterback under the bus, though. He took full responsibility, admitting he forced Brown to take risky shots down the field before the offense found its rhythm.

“We have to have a sense of urgency on cleaning this up, and that’s on me beyond anybody else,” Golesh said via The Next Round. “We can’t hold the way we did. Just sloppy perimeter holding, like I want to throw up. It made me sick, to be honest with you. We’ll take the win. Again, grateful to our fans, but that, there were so many points left, I mean, so many points offensively left out there. It makes me sick.”

Fast forward to Week 2, and Brown responded on the turf. He completed 17 of 28 passes for 223 yards and two scores, added 88 yards on the ground, and even caught a sneaky 5-yard touchdown pass. On paper, it was the ideal bounce-back game. But Golesh looks past the final score, focusing on what happens behind the scenes.

Golesh’s frustration wasn’t about the scoreboard, as Auburn racked up 613 total yards but was flagged 10 times. In one of those penalties, a holding call on left tackle Jo Simmons wiped out a 52-yard touchdown run by Brown on the opening drive.

There was also a block-in-the-back penalty on a punt return that disrupted a good field position, while running back Jeremiah Cobb fumbled near the goal line after taking a hit from the defender. Though none of these penalties or mistakes changed the final score against the Southern Miss team, Golesh made clear that such kind of sloppiness won’t survive SEC play.

This reaction isn’t a one-off tantrum for Golesh. Back during his tenure at South Florida, Golesh established a reputation for treating sloppy wins with the same harsh urgency as brutal losses.

Golesh operated under a strict rule that winning standard college football games requires zero self-inflicted mistakes, often using post-game press conferences to drag his own team’s discipline despite high-scoring blowouts. For Golesh, a double-digit margin on the scoreboard never excuses mental errors on the field.

Even with all that criticism, Golesh wasn’t blind to what went right with the program. Before diving into mistakes, he pointed to the depth Auburn got to show off with the game well in hand by the fourth quarter.

“The positive on both sides, we got to play a bunch of guys that hadn’t played yet got to play,” Golesh said. “So it was really good experience for those guys. I was just so beyond disappointed in the sloppiness. I was beyond disappointed in the block in the back, the punt return, and then the fumble in the red zone.”

“Just sloppy, sloppy, and I don’t care what the score is. I don’t. That’s what I just told these guys. Like, a win’s a win, and winning college football games is hard, but if the standard is that and that’s what it looks like, then we got, we’re gonna have a really, really, really long season.”

Though he was encouraging of players like offensive lineman Wilson Zierer getting reps, Golesh wants the Tigers to clean up the penalties, turnovers, and red-zone mistakes as the season progresses. That progress will be tested on September 19, when the Florida Gators and first-year coach Jon Sumrall come to Jordan-Hare Stadium.