Auburn’s 2025 Season Ends with a Harsh Grade, but 2026 Offers a Fresh Start
The 2025 season was supposed to be a turning point for Auburn. Instead, it became another chapter in a frustrating stretch for a program still searching for its footing in the SEC.
With a 5-7 finish and a D+ grade from USA TODAY Sports’ final season rankings, the Tigers landed in the bottom quarter of the FBS - grouped alongside struggling programs like Colorado, Liberty, and North Carolina. That’s not the company Auburn fans expected to keep heading into the year.
The grading system here is based on how well teams met their preseason expectations. And in Auburn’s case, the drop-off was steep.
This was a team that opened the season with real buzz - not just bowl game hopes, but whispers of a potential College Football Playoff push. That kind of optimism wasn’t unfounded, either.
The Tigers had blue-chip talent on the roster, including dynamic wideout Cam Coleman and former five-star quarterback Jackson Arnold, who transferred in with big expectations and an even bigger arm.
But the season never found its rhythm. In-conference play was especially brutal, with losses piling up and momentum slipping away. Ultimately, the struggles led to the dismissal of head coach Hugh Freeze, marking Auburn’s fifth straight losing season - a streak that once would’ve felt unthinkable on the Plains.
Arnold, seen as the key to unlocking Auburn’s offense, never found his groove. He threw for just 1,309 yards and six touchdowns before being benched in favor of Ashton Daniels during the Arkansas game.
The offense, which was supposed to be explosive, sputtered far too often. Even the ground game, long a staple of Auburn football, couldn’t stabilize things.
Running back Damari Alston, who opened the season as the lead back, opted to redshirt midway through the year and entered the transfer portal - another blow to a team already struggling with consistency.
The D+ grade from USA TODAY Sports reflects not just the record, but the gap between what Auburn could’ve been and what it actually was. The Tigers were one of five programs in that grade tier to make a head coaching change - a clear sign that expectations weren’t met and changes were needed.
But here’s the good news for Auburn fans: 2026 brings a clean slate. New head coach Alex Golesh, fresh off a successful run at USF, is already making waves.
He’s brought in a promising transfer class, headlined by his former quarterback Byrum Brown - a dual-threat playmaker who knows Golesh’s system inside and out. That familiarity could be a game-changer as Auburn tries to rebuild its offensive identity.
Golesh won’t have long to get things rolling, but he does have time. With seven months until the Tigers open their 2026 campaign against Baylor, there’s room to install a new culture, rework the scheme, and build chemistry with a retooled roster. Expectations will remain high - that’s just how it goes at Auburn - but this time, there’s a sense that the pieces might finally be aligning.
The 2025 season was a disappointment, no question. But if Golesh can harness the talent already on campus and blend it with his portal additions, Auburn could be one of the more intriguing bounce-back stories in college football next fall.