There are bad ways to finish a preseason scrimmage. Auburn found one of them on Friday. The Tigers went through roughly 115 plays in their first major scrimmage of fall camp. Alex Golesh wanted it to feel as close to a real Saturday as possible. Coaches worked from the box, and TV timeouts were added. Then the new head coach got the chance to tell his team just what he thought.
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“I told the entire team, coaches, everybody, ‘Humble the heck out of yourselves here,'” Alex Golesh said after the scrimmage, via The Next Round. “I would walk out and say, overall, a sloppy day on both sides… We didn’t look like a veteran team; we looked like a team that has highs and lows and is emotional and rides with that, which is the complete opposite of what we want.”
For a first-year head coach still trying to put his stamp on the program, that was about as direct as it gets. There were positives. Alex Golesh made that clear, too. But there were also too many things that Auburn could not afford to carry into the season.
The scrimmage itself isn’t the biggest concern. What matters is what Alex Golesh believes the mess revealed. He said Auburn looked emotional. A good play lifted the team, a bad play dragged it down, and suddenly the mood was changing with every snap. That’s not the identity he wants. And that could be one of the more important parts of his early tenure.
Alex Golesh signed a six-year, $44.25 million contract when Auburn hired him. There are expectations attached to that number. But he also knows a new staff doesn’t suddenly have everything fixed because camp has started. Friday showed him where the holes are.
“We need a bunch of work tackling,” he said. “We need a bunch of work perimeter blocking, we need a bunch of work pre-snap, we need a bunch of crowd noise work.”
He could have simply blamed it on being the first major scrimmage, but he didn’t. Instead, Alex Golesh challenged both the players and coaches to humble themselves and accept the coaching. That might actually be a good sign for Auburn. And despite his “sloppy” feedback, it wasn’t all ugly.
Byrum Brown gives Alex Golesh something to feel good about
QB Byrum Brown was one of the obvious bright spots. Alex Golesh liked how he threw the football, handled the run game, and operated the offense.
“I thought Byrum had a really, really solid day,” he said. “I thought he threw it extremely well. I thought the reads in the run game were really, really good. You don’t get to see Byrum in his full effect in an orange jersey, and we blew the whistle relatively quick with him. But he did some really good things running the football.”
Byrum Brown also had to deal with crowd noise and some of the operational details that come with trying to make a scrimmage feel like a game. Brown’s contact was limited, but he still made enough plays to catch his coach’s attention. The first group of receivers also impressed Alex Golesh. He liked what he saw from them as pass catchers and, importantly, as blockers outside. That was one of the cleaner pieces of Auburn’s offensive performance.
Several players did not participate fully, including safety AnQuon Fegans and receiver Christian Neptune. Brown and other recovering players were also protected from full contact. Alex Golesh said the roster remains in fairly good shape heading into the third week of camp. And that’s important because the calendar isn’t waiting around.
Auburn opens the 2026 season against Baylor in Atlanta. The Tigers lost last year’s meeting with the Bears 38-24, and this rematch will take place at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the Aflac Kickoff Game. So Alex Golesh has less than a month to clean up the rough edges.