Auburn is in mock game week now, which means the 2026 season is just under two weeks from kicking off, and the focus inside the building is already locked onto Week 1 against Baylor.
On Monday afternoon, most of Alex Golesh’s news conference centered on that opening-game prep, but one of the more interesting topics was how he handles analytics when the game starts speeding up. Fourth downs, two-point tries and other in-game decisions have become prime territory for data-driven coaching, and Golesh said Auburn’s staff uses the numbers without becoming slaves to them.
“Ultimately, in game, I would tell you it’s really, really heavy gut on how the flow of the game is going,” Golesh said. “I think it’s important to be ahead of it in the sense of offensively your plan to go for it on fourth or not.
“Certainly, you do use ‘the book’ in terms of two-point plays, in terms of how many drives you feel like you’ve got before you get into a two-minute or four-minute situation. But in terms of in the flow of the game, especially offensively, the way you play, you better know what you’re doing on second down before you ever get to fourth down.”
Golesh’s history in Tampa shows that his approach has not been static. South Florida ranked second-to-last in the American Conference in fourth-down conversion attempts last season, with 20, and converted 60 percent of them. That success rate was sixth in the league.
The year before that, the Bulls were much more willing to push the issue, finishing with the sixth-most fourth-down attempts in the conference in 2024. And in 2023, Golesh’s first season, USF actually led the American in fourth-down tries. That was also his least efficient season in that situation, with the Bulls converting just 43.5 percent, which placed 12th among 14 teams in the conference.
For Golesh, the numbers matter, but the opponent and the rhythm of the game matter more. He said the plan can shift from one week to the next, and the staff has to be aligned on the decision-making before kickoff.
“I think you need to know going in what the thought process is. Your staff has to know what your thought process is,” Golesh said.
“But ultimately, as you go through it, I’ll never stand up here and say, ‘Man, the book said to go for it. I don’t know why we didn’t get it.’
“Because ultimately, I’ve said it before, but we can have a really good plan and we gotta go execute it. Because good plans executed poorly would be considered bad plans.”
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