Auburn is 2-0, and Alex Golesh is 2-0 in charge of the Tigers. But after Saturday’s 43-8 win over Southern Miss, the message coming out of the locker room was not about perfection. It was about how much cleaner this team still has to get before SEC play begins next week.
Golesh didn’t hide from it. He kept coming back to one word to describe Auburn’s performance: sloppy.
“We’ve got a long way to go if we’re going to win SEC games here,” Golesh said. “We’ll get there.”
That sloppiness showed up in the places coaches hate most. Penalties stalled drives, and a second-half fumble kept Auburn from turning a big win into something even more efficient.
Golesh said the offense left points on the field, and the first item on the cleanup list is obvious: get the flags under control before Florida arrives next week. He pointed to how the team practices as the root of the issue, and he said he was surprised to see Auburn play that way.
There were positives, though, especially in the run game. Auburn came into Saturday with questions there, but it looked noticeably better against Southern Miss. The Tigers more than doubled their yards per carry from Week 1 to Week 2, even if Golesh was quick to note that the opponent matters.
Florida, he said, will be “much bigger, stronger and faster than Southern Miss,” which is why Saturday’s numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, the game may have opened the door to a conversation on the offensive line, where Wilson Zierer and Jack Leyrer rotated with Jacob Strand and Cole Skinner at guard.
“You take the holding calls out, and you feel like you had a pretty good day running the football,” Golesh said. “That’s the part that’s frustrating.”
Byrum Brown’s day through the air was steadier than it was in Week 1. He finished without an interception and hit a few downfield throws that gave Auburn’s offense more of a vertical pulse.
Even so, Golesh felt there were more plays to be made. On a couple of snaps, Brown appeared to have receivers open deep but instead checked the ball down or took off running.
Golesh liked Brown’s overall performance, but he also knows those shots matter against better competition.
“I thought Byrum was really confident in how he handled it,” Golesh said. “We’re gonna have to hit some of those to score and chunk some plays here as we go.”
The defense gave Golesh less to complain about, but not zero. The biggest issue was the way Auburn finished the first half, when poor tackling helped Southern Miss push down the field for its only points of the night.
“I was disappointed with that,” Golesh said of Southern Miss’ touchdown drive. “In the second half I thought defensively we picked it up back to how we started and did a really good job.”
By the numbers, Auburn held Southern Miss to 3.8 yards per play and just two yards per rush. Through two games, the defense looks solid. Next Saturday, it should get its toughest test so far.
That challenge is already on the radar inside the program. Auburn left Saturday with another win, but also with a long list of corrections. And Golesh made it clear that the standard has to be higher than what the Tigers showed against Southern Miss.
“A win is a win and winning college football games is hard,” Golesh said, “but if the standard is that and that’s what it looks like, we’re going to have a really, really long season.”
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Byrum Browns Unusual Auburn TD Was No Fluke
Byrum Browns night against Southern Miss was packed with the kind of production Auburn will happily take every week, from 319 yards of total offense to three touchdowns in a 43-8 win. But the play everyone kept coming back to was the one that looked almost too unusual to be part of a normal game plan: Brown hauling in a touchdown pass on fourth-and-3, a catch that doubled as his first reception in two seasons and Auburns first quarterback touchdown reception since 2012.
There was nothing gimmicky about it, at least in Alex Goleshs view, who said the call was routine for that situation. Brown, for his part, framed it in the most practical terms possible, stressing the need to do whatever it takes to score. For Auburn, the bigger takeaway is that the Tigers have a quarterback who can create answers in more than one way, even if one of them looks rare enough to stand out long after the final whistle. [Read more 🡒]
Auburns Ground Surge Feels Real But One Bigger Test Still Awaits
Auburn left the Southern Miss game with a rushing performance that looked a lot more like what this offense wants to be. The Tigers averaged 6.7 yards per carry and piled up 343 rushing yards, with Alex Golesh leaning on a balanced ground effort that included Omar Mabson II, Jeremiah Cobb and Byrum Brown. Even with penalties wiping out some gains, the overall picture was better than what Auburn had been putting on tape, and it gave the run game a tangible step forward.
The question now is whether that surge holds up once the competition sharpens and the pressure turns up on the offensive line. Auburn still wants cleaner, more consistent execution in the run game, and the coming weeks should bring a real look at how much of this improvement is sustainable. For a unit still sorting out its identity up front, the next few games may say more than one encouraging afternoon ever could. [Read more 🡒]
Auburn's Dominant Win Still Left Alex Golesh With One Concern
Auburn's first home game under Alex Golesh brought plenty to like, and the 43-8 win over Southern Miss gave the Tigers a second victory of the season with room to spare. Golesh came away impressed by the way the defense set the tone and by quarterback Byrum Browns performance, while linebacker Elijah Melendez stood out as the teams leading tackler in a dominant all-around showing.
Still, the opener at Jordan-Hare Stadium was not entirely clean in Goleshs eyes. He called the experience surreal, but his bigger takeaway was a familiar coachs concern: the offense was too sloppy at times, and penalties kept the Tigers from looking as sharp as the score suggested. Even after a lopsided result, there was a clear sense that Auburns ceiling depends on tightening up the details. [Read more 🡒]