TAMPA, Fla. — This time last year, I delighted in poking a bit of eye-rolling fun at Auburn for suddenly claiming seven more national championships than the two it’s historically credited with (1957 and 2010).
One of those new “championships” is actually from 1958, the year 9-0-1 Auburn finished No. 4 in both major national polls — AP’s media and UPI’s coaches — behind 11-0 LSU. That’s because it was declared the champs by two previously, ahem, unheralded selectors: the Howell Ratings and the Montgomery Full Season Selector.
Would that be the Thurston Howell III Ratings and the Montgomery, Alabama, Full Season Selector? Those would be just as legitimate.
College football’s history is littered with mythical national championships. A naysayer could argue against LSU’s 1958 title because it was won long before the BCS/CFP era, so let Auburn have a bit of mythical fun. I expect Auburn will be rolling the trees in Toomer’s Corner for those 1910, 1913 and 1914 claimed titles any day now.
There’s no question no one at Auburn is claiming any national championships from the past five seasons. Five straight losing seasons, mind you, the program’s worst such streak since 1946-50.
A program that is home to three Heisman Trophy winners — Pat Sullivan in 1971, Bo Jackson in 1985 and Cam Newton in 2010 — has lost its way. The misguided hires of Bryan Harsin (fired midway through his second season) and Hugh Freeze (fired midway through his third) left Auburn with a combined 27-35 record, including the wreckage of a 3-13 Southeastern Conference mark the past two seasons.
Enter Alex Golesh, 42, who left Tampa’s palm trees after three seasons at South Florida for the plains of east Alabama and another shot at a reclamation project.
Golesh, who I feel safe in saying is the first SEC football coach ever born in Moscow (Russia, not Idaho), has experience at digging programs out of the mud. USF won a combined four games in the three seasons before Golesh arrived, where he went 7-6, 7-6 and 9-4. They’re not naming a street running past the USF campus for Golesh, but his running of the Bulls was certainly enough to draw the attention of SEC programs such as Auburn, Florida, Arkansas and, at least peripherally, LSU.
LSU plays at Auburn on Oct. 24, the first meeting between the two former SEC West rivals since 2023 and their first game at Auburn since 2022.
Golesh was asked here Tuesday what goals he has for his first season at Auburn, a legitimately proud program with a history of Heisman winners, SEC championships and national titles (your mileage may vary).
“I don't set goals,” Golesh said, a wise answer for any first-year coach. “I've always thought that that's a little bit like New Year's resolutions. They usually work for a little bit and you kind of keep it moving.
“I set standards. We set standards as a program. Our standard is to be the best version of us every single day. The standard when I got to Auburn was to get as good as we possibly can as fast as we can. How do we do that? By our daily process. By how we attack every single day.”
Golesh built his reputation as a highly regarded offensive mind, starting with stints as co-offensive coordinator at Central Florida in 2020 and Tennessee in 2021-22. At USF this past season, the Bulls ranked No. 2 nationally in total offense (501.7 yards per game), No. 5 in scoring (43.0 ppg) and recorded 500-plus yards of offense eight times. Quarterback Byrum Brown, who followed Golesh to Auburn, became the 12th quarterback ever with 3,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing in a season, the first to do that since Jayden Daniels’ Heisman-winning campaign at LSU in 2023.
“He demands the absolute very best from everyone that he comes in contact with,” Brown said of Golesh on Tuesday. “He cares for his players deeply, (his) coaches deeply. He's not going to ask you to do anything that he wouldn't do himself.”
Despite all the offensive flash and dash from their USF days, Golesh said he wants Auburn to develop a physical identity. A “violent” identity.
“I think a successful Year One is if we can have a foundation of who we are, proof of concept offensively, defensively, so we can continue to recruit to that identity,” Golesh said. “We’re going to run the … ball.”
While Golesh has time to build, some of the players he inherited do not. Players such as fifth-year senior kicker Alex McPherson, who has never experienced a winning season at Auburn.
“We want to put Auburn football back where it should be,” he said. “We want to set a foundation.”
Perhaps, one day, a foundation that can lead to another indisputable national championship.