Auburn has fallen. Alex Golesh is betting he can pick the Tigers back up

AUBURN, Ala. — Every new regime starts with a mantra, and for Alex Golesh at Auburn, that mantra is, "Be Who You Say You Are." It's a helpful guidepost, a way to bring oneself in line with both expectations and assumptions.

But "Be Who You Say You Are" has been one hell of a challenge for the Auburn Tigers lately. Five straight years of losing records, plus six straight Iron Bowl losses, plus multiple embarrassing coaching departures, have the Auburn Family both seething and exhausted. It's now Golesh's job to remake both a team and an image.

"It's his only saying," says Auburn general manager Andrew Warsaw, who's now on his third stop with Golesh. "That's what he's always said, even when he was the [offensive] coordinator of Tennessee. If you've got a wide receiver who says, 'I'm going to be the best wide receiver,' cool. Do everything it takes. Go do it. If you're going to say it, be it."

Golesh and several of his assistants recently sat down with Yahoo Sports for wide-ranging conversations on the state of the Auburn program and the challenges of resuscitating a moribund brand in a hyper-competitive conference in a time of unprecedented college football chaos, a feat not unlike changing the tires on a car that's doing laps at Talladega.

Whether Golesh can manage the feat remains to be seen, but he gives off the aura of a man absolutely ready for the challenge, starting with his overarching philosophy: "Really clear and definitive direction, meaning every single standard in the program is clear, concise, defined. There's zero gray," he says. "When you walk out of the room, there's zero gray … on the expectation, the standard, the tactical, technical way that we're doing it. And I'm going to hold you to that standard."

Auburn's entire existence is a long run of grays, skyrocketing highs followed by plummeting lows. Only three SEC schools — Alabama, LSU and Georgia — own a more recent national championship than Auburn, and yet Auburn has exactly one 10-win season since 2013. It can make cases for putting two players — Cam Newton and Bo Jackson — on college football's Mount Rushmore, and the Tigers ran 109 yards to glory against Alabama with the Kick Six, arguably the greatest play in college football history.

But just as frequently, the school has embarrassed itself with scandals, incompetence and general mediocrity. (Win totals for the last six seasons: 6, 6, 5, 6, 5, 5.) The Loveliest Village on the Plains has one of the great celebrations in college football — rolling the Toomer's Corner oaks at the northeast edge of campus — but in the 2020s, the trees have remained mostly TP-free. It's now up to Golesh and the new-look Tigers to give the oaks the postgame decor they deserve.

The son of Russian parents who escaped the collapsing Soviet regime, Golesh arrived in Brooklyn in 1991 at age 7 with little knowledge of English or America itself. In short order, he shed his Russian accent, reveled in unfamiliar delicacies like bananas and Coca-Cola, and dove deep into the glorious sport of football.

Golesh's family moved to Ohio, where he played football at Dublin Scioto High School and went on to serve as a student assistant at Ohio State under Jim Tressel. And so he began the long, thankless, inglorious path of the wandering coach, working his way up through the ranks — co-offensive coordinator at the University of Central Florida, tight ends coach at both Iowa State and Illinois, running backs and tight ends coach at the University of Toledo. His work at Tennessee as offensive coordinator from 2021 to 2022 — a run which coincided with the Vols' resurgence and a notable win over Alabama — put him in position for a head coaching gig.

Golesh then took over a 1-11 South Florida team and led the Bulls to three straight bowls, finishing with nine wins last season and a brief appearance in the AP Top 25 at No. 18. That performance ensured his name entered the pool of candidates for big-dog jobs, and as luck would have it, Auburn had kicked Hugh Freeze to the curb after two-plus less-than-inspiring seasons. Conventional wisdom had Golesh headed to Arkansas as Auburn pursued Jon Sumrall. But Sumrall went to Florida, the Tigers tabbed Golesh, and here we are.

"In today's landscape, it's important that you search out the real ones from the fake ones," says tight ends coach Larry Scott, who gave up a head coaching job at Howard to join Golesh's staff. "He's a guy that earned it the right way. Came up in the business the hard, right way. And that speaks volumes to the type of person that he is, the type of man that he is. Those are the type of people you want to attach yourself to. People that are real, got their feet on the ground, down to earth."

Golesh, 42, signed a six-year, $44 million deal with Auburn, with considerable escalators involved. If he can get the Tigers to nine wins, for instance, he'll earn another $1.5 million, and a CFP berth will be worth $1 million.

Auburn introduced Golesh via a miniature version of its cross-campus gameday Tiger Walk, with fans lining Donahue Drive to welcome in the new coach and his family. The joy on that December afternoon was obvious, but so too was the message: Give us a reason to keep cheering . In his initial press conference, Golesh did exactly that.

"We're going to build a process-driven program: A process-driven program where we wake up and worry about winning every single aspect of our lives every single day," he declared. "A lot of the time you don't control the end result. You control your daily habits, your daily process. And if you keep pouring into that day in, day out … the process will pay you back. We're also going to have a hell of a lot of fun doing it."

"He's going to work harder than anyone, he's going to know every element of a program, he's going to be confident," says Warsaw. "He's going to build a culture, from a staff perspective and an athlete perspective, that people can buy into."

It's easy to look at Auburn's woeful recent record and roll your eyes at that. This is a program whose primary characteristic over the last decade-plus is an unerring ability to step on its own tail, whether giving up back-breaking last-second touchdowns in the Iron Bowl or gagging with an epic upset over Georgia on the line . There's a pall of fatalistic gloom that hangs over The Plains, and motivational slogans delivered at high volume can only do so much against that dark cloud.

Here's what Golesh does have working in his favor, though: the Auburn Family. Auburn fans take immense pride in that descriptor, a folksier collective term than, say, "Nation" or "Army" or whatever. The Family is annoyed right now, yes, but the Family will always support you, particularly when you don't embarrass the Family. The 88,000-plus fans who still pack Jordan-Hare Stadium every home Saturday just want a reason to keep on cheering.

Golesh might be able to give it to them. He's bringing along 13 players from South Florida, most notably quarterback Byrum Brown. Last season, Brown became just the 12th player in college football history to throw for over 3,000 yards and rush for over 1,000 yards in a season. He's the latest in a line of speedy, aggressive quarterbacks Golesh has overseen, a number that includes Hendon Hooker and Joe Milton III.

Brown is, in many ways, the embodiment of Golesh's take-the-fight-to-the-defense philosophy, one he's honed over years as both a head and assistant coach. He runs a version of the veer-and-shoot offense derived from Art Briles at Baylor, spreading his offense nearly the entire width of the field and seeking out the overmatched defenders.

Golesh's teams work quickly; at Tennessee as an OC, and at South Florida as a head coach, his offenses have ranked in the top two in seconds per play in each of the last five seasons. The speed pays quick dividends. South Florida last year ranked fifth nationally in points scored (40.5) and third in total offense (488.5 yards).

Behind the scenes, Golesh has worked quickly, too. He's brought in more than 40 new staff members, along with 40 transfers and 21 high school commits. This team shares a logo with the one that's struggled throughout the 2020s, but not much else. In this era, though, what you did last year doesn't matter, it's what you can get done now — like, immediately — that matters.

"Curt Cignetti just showed you can [win a national championship] in two years," Golesh says. "Everybody — administratively, donor-based, and I think nationally, is like, 'Well, it can be done in two years.' On the flip of that is, you could point to [Indiana] and say, 'Here is the funding that they had, here was the model that they used, here was the support.' If the expectation is that, then match that. So it does go both ways a little bit."

Auburn begins the Golesh era this Saturday against Baylor in Atlanta. Because this is the SEC, the schedule doesn't get easy at any point. Road trips to both Tennessee and Georgia lurk, and Florida, LSU, Ole Miss and Alabama will all be headed to The Plains.

It's that final game that draws the most interest around Auburn. Golesh has taken to repeating the line legendary Tiger coach Pat Dye used when asked how long it would take to beat Alabama: "Sixty minutes." Catchy, yes, but the Iron Bowl will loom large in the Auburn Family's collective mind until Golesh can rack up another win. Auburn has only beaten Alabama twice since the Kick Six in 2013, and hasn't won in Tuscaloosa, site of this year's game, since 2010 — and the Tigers needed a Heisman-clinching comeback from Newton to do that.

That's for later, though. For now, Auburn has Baylor in its sights. A string of wins would be lovely for the Auburn Family, but they'll settle for a little dignity to start. And then we'll find out if Alex Golesh and the 2026 Auburn Tigers are who they say they are.