Auburn’s new head coach, Alex Golesh, is making one thing sound nonnegotiable as he starts to shape the Tigers in his image: accountability.
That message has been front and center from the beginning, and Golesh said it plainly in an interview with David Pollack. “We’ve talked from day one that, you know, you’ve got to love your brother enough to hold him accountable,” he said. “I think that’s the hardest thing to do when you bring guys in from all over the place, into an environment.”
For Golesh, the challenge goes beyond coaching technique or scheme. He pointed to the modern realities around building a roster, where money, egos, and outside noise can make that standard even harder to establish.
“And, you involve money in it, you involve egos in it, you involve a lot of different things to put together a team,” he said. “But that’s what I asked for, man, like can we be selfless enough and love each other enough to hold each other accountable?”
He also made clear that accountability is not something that appears overnight. It has to be built, tested, and reinforced through difficult moments.
“[Accountability is] the hardest thing to build,” he said. “You need time, you need tough situations, and I told them from the beginning, we’re gonna put them in those tough situations.”
That approach stands out against the backdrop of Auburn’s recent struggles, where talented teams still found ways to come up short in key moments. Over that stretch, players were vocal on social media about the team’s failures, the coach criticized his quarterback in press conferences, and the connection between coach and player often looked thin.
Golesh is trying to reset that culture. The Tigers’ new head coach has said the right things so far, and his emphasis on accountability is clearly a pillar of what he wants Auburn to become.
There is still plenty unknown about how all of this will look once the season arrives. The real test comes in September, when the Tigers finally take the field and Golesh’s words have to hold up under game-day pressure.
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