Justin and Dan talk Florida and Tennessee being back on the schedule for Auburn football — and look ahead to those massive early games. Topics for this subscribers-only episode include:

• getting 12% better at podcasting

• a salute to Courtney Taylor

• the opportunity Auburn has against Florida

• the opportunity Florida has against Auburn

• wait, Florida hasn’t been to Auburn since 2011?

• the history between Golesh and Sumrall adding intrigue to AU/UF

• fun memories of Auburn’s loss to Tennessee in 2018

• the importance of the Auburn game for Josh Heupel

• the difference between 5-0 and 2-3 is more than just three losses

• why conference realignment will become a knife fight in the mud

• Dan’s report from Alabama State fall camp

• a historic edition of Who’s Older (supercut imminent)

This is a premium podcast for Observer subscribers only. You can join by clicking the button below or going to this link.

Subscribe now

Follow Dan (@dnpck) and Justin (@JFergusonAU) on Twitter.

Read more

AUBURN — It’s the final mailbag of the summer, y’all. Get fired up.

In a few days, Auburn football will begin fall camp, making us just a month and some change away from the start of the Alex Golesh Era against Baylor in Atlanta. We’ll have a ton of coverage from practices over the next several weeks, gearing up for the seventh (!) season of The Observer.

Yes, The Observer turns six tomorrow. I’m going to enjoy one final weekend away from the Plains before the chaos begins, and I can’t wait to get it rolling. The excitement level for potential resurgence from football and basketball is growing.

Before we dive into this mailbag, I want to be transparent again up front: The subscription price increases start this weekend. All existing subscriptions will be moved up slightly to $7/month or $70/year moving forward.

That process will likely start sometime today, in order to go into effect for the August renewals. So, if you get an email from Substack about it, that’s why. (If you got an email earlier this week about renewing at the old price… sorry, they wouldn’t let me schedule the pricing change.)

If you have any questions at all, please reach out to the1andonlyJF@gmail.com.

In case you missed it, I wrote all about why we’re doing what we’re doing here:

Now that’s out of the way, let’s dive into a very fun mailbag covering a lot of ground for Auburn football and some Auburn basketball on the final day of Year 6.

Subscribe now

Which position group do you want to watch first once practice starts?

James

For the umpteenth year in a row, I am heading into an Auburn football season putting a ton of attention on the offensive line.

The offensive line is a fascinating position group, especially in this day and age of college football. Building an elite one takes time, patience and continuity. It’s not one where star-stacking automatically works, and it’s not one where buying a whole new front via the transfer portal is the way to go. But how do you recruit, develop and retain players longterm where there’s always more money and playing time elsewhere?

The good (?) news for Auburn is that you don’t have to worry about that as much in Year 1 of a new era. The Tigers had to patchwork an offensive line that can realistically play in the SEC right now, which gave you one-year rentals like Cole Best, Jo Simmons, Cole Skinner, Jacob Strand and Jack Leyrer. Yet Auburn still did a good job of looking ahead to the future by getting or keeping linemen who could play multiple seasons — Stanton Ramil, Deryc Plazz, Kail Ellis, Tai Buster, Kenneth McManus, etc.

Read more

We are entering the quietest part of the recruiting cycle. Both college programs and high school teams alike are preparing to hit the field again for fall camp. The start of the season is right around the corner.

Recruiting never truly stops, but the focus now shifts to winning real football games in just over five weeks.

The good news for Auburn is most of the work is done for the 2027 cycle. That doesn’t mean the staff will stop recruiting.

Subscribe now

They will have to fight to keep this class together, they will continue to chase after top targets that are committed elsewhere and there’s always a handful of prospects who breakout their senior campaigns to become high coveted targets.

But with 25 commitments and a borderline top-10 class, most of the heavy lifting is done.

So, before Auburn hits the practice field again next week and the 2026 season takes the spotlight, let’s take a look at some of the most recent commits — and misses — along with what work remains for this 2027 cycle.

Read more

It’s officially Grubserver Season. For the 2026 edition of our annual local dining recommendations podcast, we’re asking you to pick your four favorite places.

Imagine you are planning out the ideal restaurant tour of the Auburn/Opelika area on a home game weekend. You have four selections to make.

They can be in any area restaurants for any combination of meals — breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, snacks, late night, etc. — in any particular order.

But you’re limited to just four recommended places. Ballots with more than four will be thrown out.

Tell us your top four in the link below. Please feel free to give order recommendations or the reasons why you chose the spots.

VOTE: 2026 GRUBSERVER AWARDS

Our favorite ballots will be read on air as part of the Grubserver episode in August, along with some contributions from those in the Extended Observer Universe.

And the restaurant that is recommended the most will join Pannie George’s and Byron’s in the Grubserver Hall of Fame as the 2026 inductee. (You are free to v…

Read more

Justin throws a four-pack of ObservFours at Dan: football concerns, basketball predictions, favorite trivia topics and ice cream treats. Topics for this episode include:

• important Grubserver information

• Dan promises a Who’s Older supercut

• lingering questions about Auburn’s 2026 roster and schedule

• caveats and disclaimers galore

• positions where Auburn is practically starting over

• good news and bad news about Byrum Brown

• everything’s coming up Mantas

• another Ella Langley Billboard update

• The Guys list some of their esoteric interests

• a bombshell from Dan during the sweet treat chat

You can cast your votes for this year’s Grubserver Awards by using the button below or clicking this link.

VOTE: 2026 GRUBSERVER AWARDS

If you’re receiving this free podcast episode and would like to upgrade to a paid subscription that gives you access to all stories and premium podcast episodes, subscribe using the button below or clicking this link.

Subscribe now

Follow Dan (@dnpck) and Justin (@JFergusonAU) on Twitter.

AUBURN — One week from today, Auburn football will begin what should be its most exciting edition of fall camp in years: The first one under Alex Golesh.

There’s no denying that Golesh has brought some instant buzz to the Tigers, who are desperate to end their brutal streak of five straight losing seasons. After importing a lot of what made him successful at USF and rounding out a balanced roster with more additions, Auburn pivoted right off of spring practices into a red-hot summer for recruiting that has put it in a surprising top-10 position for the Class of 2027.

Auburn’s ultimate goal for the 2026 season is to build a sustainable foundation for years to come instead of chasing a specific win total. But it’s obvious that winning more games than it loses — while not easy with this schedule — is an attainable way for Golesh to show progress in Year 1.

The serious push towards that will begin next week, when Auburn returns to the practice field and goes on a month-long run toward the opener against Baylor in Atlanta. The Tigers will report to campus a week from Tuesday, with actual drills set to start Wednesday at the football performance center.

In years past, we’ve looked ahead to preseason practices here at The Observer by unveiling “The Fall Camp 15” — the 15 players that we’re watching the closest in August. It’s now time for the 2026 edition.

You won’t find a massive list of projected starters here. Those are obvious. Instead, we’re singling out players that we think could see their stocks shoot up in camp with good weeks of practice, leading to big roles and important spots on the depth chart.

Observer subscribers can read the entire list below. Those of you who haven’t joined yet can check out our first pick, then subscribe to read the rest. As a reminder, Observer prices will increase to $70/year or $7/month this weekend, so your best value is to buy your first whole year for $60 between now and August 1.

Subscribe now

RB Omar Mabson II

While Jeremiah Cobb is the expected leader of the running back room as the only returning starter on offense, Auburn is going to need much more than just him to do what it wants to do on the ground. So with Bryson Washington working his way back to full speed and both Nykahi Davenport and Tae Meadows making the jump from the Group of Five, why not Mabson as the one to watch at the position in fall camp?

Mabson had a strong set of spring practices — his first at Auburn, as he reclassified last year before an early true freshman season — and physically looked the part of a workhorse SEC running back. He got plenty of praise for already being the best pass protection option in the room, and that should naturally get him some chances early.

The young Auburn High product could form a pretty lethal thunder-and-lightning combination with Cobb at the top of the Tigers’ running back rotation this season. He’s gotten even more buzz in summer workouts, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him take fall camp as an opportunity to launch into a significant role in this offense.

WR DeShawn Spencer

Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — There might not have been a program in college basketball that loved the recent changes to the recruiting calendar more than Auburn.

Rewind to about 16 months ago, when the best team in Auburn basketball history was on a run to its second-ever Final Four. The portal opened while the Tigers were still playing, making things difficult on a staff whose top priority was on the hardwood.

“We didn’t know what was coming back,” Steven Pearl said last week before an AMBUSH event in Tampa, Fla. “We didn’t know if Tahaad (Pettiford) was coming back. We didn’t know if Chad (Baker-Mazara) was coming back. So there was a lot of uncertainty. For us, it was really, at that point, what can we get?

“We missed out on some of the best bigs in the portal because, at the time, we were playing and trying to win a national championship. The schools that we had beaten were out there recruiting these guys. We were at a bit of a disadvantage.”

The most obvious example of Auburn missing out in the portal process while still playing postseason basketball was Yaxel Lendeborg, a do-it-all star big man at UAB. Auburn recruited him, but he ultimately decided to play at Michigan — the program it had beaten in the Sweet 16 in Atlanta just days earlier.

Lendeborg went on to become the Big Ten Player of the Year and a consensus All-American for a massive and dominant Michigan team that won the national title. While there probably was more to do with Lendeborg’s decision than pure timing — Bruce Pearl even said during a broadcast at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas that Auburn’s $1 million offer “wasn’t enough to warm him up” — it certainly didn’t help.

When Auburn’s run ended in San Antonio and its undivided attention could be turned to the transfer portal, plenty of the best available bigs had already made up their minds. The Tigers had to scramble somewhat in their push to replace the likes of Johni Broome and Dylan Cardwell, who had been a two-headed monster at center.

Auburn landed Alabama native and Mississippi State veteran KeShawn Murphy, but it was telling that his best work with the Bulldogs came as a plus-sized 6-foot-10 power forward next to a traditional center. The Tigers also signed European import Filip Jović, although he wasn’t as large as originally expected as a 6-foot-8 big man.

And although Auburn got a true 7-footer to add to the mix in JUCO transfer Emeka Opurum, the defense-first project was only limited to just six early-season games before an undisclosed health issue sidelined him for the rest of the campaign.

“We ended up having to get two 4-men to play our 5 position last year,” Pearl said.

While Auburn didn’t make the NCAA Tournament after a brutally disappointing slide to end the first regular season under the younger Pearl, the Tigers played all the way until the final weekend of the season thanks to their run to the NIT championship.

This time, though, Auburn didn’t have to be of two minds as a staff, actively recruiting and actively coaching at the same time. The portal didn’t open until after the national championship game, and the Tigers got a dedicated general manager in place in the weeks leading up to it by hiring Brian Kloman from Louisville.

“So I thought one of the biggest things was, with the portal opening after the season, I thought our staff was very organized,” Pearl said. “And I thought we did good job of identifying a lot of the things we didn’t have previously.”

It didn’t take too long to figure out what Auburn’s top priority was in the roster renovation. Auburn signed French international 7-footer Narcisse Ngoy during the NIT run, since he wasn’t part of the portal process.

Then the Tigers’ first official transfer signing of the portal class was 7-foot-1 Santa Clara center Bukky Oboye, fresh off what should have been an upset of Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Auburn went from having zero healthy true centers last season to landing two of them quickly. In fact, the program only had two 7-footers on any roster — Opurum and new $130 million Los Angeles Lakers addition Walker Kessler — over its last 11 seasons.

Ngoy and Oboye will be the first 7-footers to be on the same roster for Auburn since the 2013-14 season, when Asauhn Dixon-Tatum and Benas Griciunas played for the Tigers. Griciunas only featured in 12 games for Auburn before suffering an injury.

Simply put, what Auburn now has roaming the floor inside Neville Arena this summer as the Tigers look to have a bounce-back Year 2 under Pearl is rare. And it has the potential to be special, judging by the early returns.

“You’re not going to play against really two better 7-footers,” shooting guard Kevin Overton said earlier this month. “Their characteristics, and their pros and cons — the way they complement each other is crazy.”

Read more

Justin and Dan discuss players who got serious summer buzz at SEC Media Days this week in Tampa and play some more Who’s Older? Topics for this subscribers-only episode include:

• A Pirate Looks at The Rest of the Secondary

• Golesh’s enthusiasm for the tight end room

• potential starters on the offensive line

• Byrum Brown’s effectiveness in the red zone

• Grubserver news

• Justin tried one of Dan’s favorite pizza places

• a six-pack of Who’s Older?

• the end of this episode is a backdoor pilot for future spinoff podcast “Chart Chat: Fellas talkin’ Ella”

This is a premium podcast for Observer subscribers only. You can join by clicking the button below or going to this link.

Subscribe now

Follow Dan (@dnpck) and Justin (@JFergusonAU) on Twitter.

Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Ever since he arrived at Auburn last December, the word around Alex Golesh is that he really sticks to his schedule.

In his time as Auburn’s new head football coach, Golesh has been all about accomplishing tasks as efficiently as possible, then moving quickly onto the next one.

This was on display Tuesday at SEC Media Days in Tampa, where he reignited a struggling USF program and earned a chance to return to the league as a head coach. Golesh was all over the hallways and side rooms of the Marriott on Water Street, ripping through interview after interview of a packed-out plan of attack.

No wonder his offenses operate that way, too.

Perhaps the most defining characteristic of Golesh to anyone in attendance at SEC Media Days this week is his preferred brand of offensive tempo.

Even if you aren’t plugged into all things Auburn or know the ins and outs of what he did at USF, you probably still know he goes fast — which started in this conference during his time at Tennessee as the offensive coordinator for Josh Heupel.

So, it should come as no surprise that this turned into a real topic Tuesday, when Golesh was speeding along during his time in the main Media Days room.

A media member pointed out to Golesh that his Auburn team was called the second-fastest offense in the country for the 2026 season by Pro Football Focus:

Auburn operated at only a slightly above-average tempo last season, but that figures to change drastically in 2026. That’s because the Tigers hired Alex Golesh away from USF, and he arrives with his highly regarded quarterback Byrum Brown via the transfer portal.

The pair directed a blistering veer-and-shoot offense in Tampa that helped USF reach nine wins for the first time in eight years. A major part of that success came from refusing to let opponents catch their breath. The Bulls operated at tempo on 48.2% of their offensive plays, 6% higher than any other team in the country.

This marks the fourth straight season that Golesh’s offense has led the nation in tempo play rate. That includes his three years at USF along with the season before it, where he topped the charts as Tennessee’s offensive coordinator while working under Josh Heupel.

Golesh’s offenses have only become more aggressive with each passing season. Last year’s Bulls are the only team to come close to playing at tempo on half of their offensive snaps since PFF began tracking such data. An increase in competition level and new surroundings may force Golesh to ease off the accelerator slightly, but having a quarterback already fluent in the system should make the transition much smoother.

PFF’s tempo numbers are a little more advanced than the standard ones, as they base their findings off of detailed film review. And, like the excerpt above states, the database has only been tracking that statistic for a limited amount of time.

But one of the oldest and easiest methods of finding out how fast an offense likes to operate is by looking at the average amount of seconds of possession it has per play.

In that category, Golesh and new Auburn offensive coordinator Joel Gordon — along with quarterback Byrum Brown and so many other pieces to the Tigers’ attack now — engineered the No. 2 fastest pace in the country last season, just behind rival FAU.

The year before that, USF was… No. 2, only behind conference foe North Texas. The year before that, USF was… No. 2, joining Jacksonville State as the only teams in FBS that averaged less than 21 seconds per play. (Former JSU head coach Rich Rodriguez, now back at West Virginia, has PFF’s No. 1 fastest offense for 2026.)

During his two seasons at Tennessee with Heupel, Golesh’s offenses ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in average seconds per play. No other coach in the country has been consistently in the top five as much as Golesh, much less the top two.

“I think offensive football is about finding matchups in space, and we chose to do it really, really quickly,” Golesh said Tuesday.

Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Maybe it was the media training. Maybe it was being with his now-longtime head coach. Maybe it was just being back in Tampa.

Maybe it was the Monday night trip to Meat Market.

Whatever it was for Byrum Brown, it worked. On Tuesday at SEC Media Days, Brown handled every radio interview, every TV camera closeup, every press conference podium and every question like he had done this all before.

But, as so many media members across the conference’s landscape were quick to remind him, Auburn’s new starting quarterback had not done this all before.

He was in the SEC now, remember? All those stats he piled up over the last several seasons as the starting quarterback at USF were nice. In different ways and different cadences, he was constantly reminded that he wasn’t playing Group of Five football.

And Brown’s head coach — who was in this conference not too long ago — made it clear that there were no asterisks needed with him.

Subscribe now

Whenever someone asked Alex Golesh what it would take for people to talk about Brown at the end of the 2026 season “as one of the best quarterbacks in the country,” the response was straight to the point.

“Yeah, well, Byrum Brown is one of the best quarterbacks in the country, and he’s shown that over the years,” Golesh said. “What has to happen for Byrum is he’s just got to continue to be him, every single day.”

The confidence radiated off of Brown on Tuesday in Tampa. It wasn’t arrogance. It wasn’t cockiness. It was true belief that he has what it takes to succeed in the SEC.

“We know we’re being looked down upon,” Brown said. “But we don’t really take it any type of way. We just put our head down, go to work, be the best ‘us’ that we can be every single day. And I think that speaks for everybody that transferred.

“And we just want Auburn to be its best, and want to leave it better than we found it. And that’s the plan, bring Auburn back to where it should be. And that’s been it since Day 1. So, I can’t wait to be a leader of that.”

Read more

Justin checks in from SEC Media Days in Tampa to discuss with Dan what he heard from a confident Alex Golesh and his players. Topics for this episode include:

• a brief history of the Electronic Media Room at SEC Media Days

• Golesh’s talent for speaking extemporaneously

• Byrum Brown impressing everyone he meets

• plot a course and set sail with “The Pirate” Champ Anthony

• “Return of the Mack”

• players who have been singled out by Golesh or one of their teammates

• why The Guys have doubts about one SEC team in particular

• the Disney Vault

• Who’s More Older?: Tampa Bay Edition

• early Oscar buzz for Chalamet as Manziel?

If you’re receiving this free podcast episode and would like to upgrade to a paid subscription that gives you access to all stories and premium podcast episodes, subscribe using the button below or clicking this link.

Subscribe now

Follow Dan (@dnpck) and Justin (@JFergusonAU) on Twitter.

TAMPA, Fla. — It’s a SEC Media Days tradition that doesn’t get the nationally televised spotlight or the viral social media buzz — and that’s by design.

Media Days, at its core, is an event for everybody else. This is an opportunity for people who cover the sport on a national or regional basis to talk to plenty of head coaches and players. It’s also a time where those who cover teams can ask questions and gain insight from opponents for the upcoming season, if they so choose.

When it comes to head coach interviews, the stuff you might see on TV or online can be very surface-level, since the vast majority of the media members involved aren’t experts on that specific team. There’s still value to be found in the “big room,” especially when it comes to talking to players. But a lot of it is not for the diehard fan.

Fortunately, over the years, Auburn has made a point to give the local beat a chance to talk to the head football coach before he goes through the Media Days circus. It’s the chance to get plenty of real-deal information before the start of fall camp.

Subscribe now

This year, Alex Golesh participated in this tradition for the first time at Auburn. Before a scheduled AMBUSH alumni club event Monday night in Tampa — where he was USF’s head coach for the last three years — Golesh sat down with local media members who had already made the trek. (Steven Pearl and John Cohen did, too.)

Golesh even dressed up for the occasion, joking that Auburn people really hadn’t seen him in a suit since his introductory press conference back in December.

Auburn’s first-year head coach spent nearly a half-hour fielding questions Monday night, breaking down what he’s seen from his team over the summer months and where things stand with quite a few players heading into fall camp.

In this morning’s newsletter, Observer subscribers can read our notes from everything Golesh had to say Monday night in Tampa.

If you don’t have a subscription yet, you can get your first full year for $60 between now and the end of July, before prices go up to $70 per year or $7 per month on August 1. Click the button below to learn more.

• Auburn will start fall camp in two weeks, with players reporting on August 4 (Tuesday) and practice beginning on August 5 (Wednesday).

• The status of edge rusher Da’Shawn Womack, who was arrested earlier this summer on a charge of reckless endangerment, is still unclear right now. “We've handled the punishment piece internally. We're waiting on the legal part of it to go through what it's gotta go through. Then we'll make a decision from there.”

• Golesh said that he expects a nearly clean bill of health when the Tigers open camp. The only exception is cornerback Devin Williams, who missed all of his first season in 2025 and will be out all of 2026 with an ACL injury.

• Auburn had three different players undergo shoulder surgery after spring practices, but they are expected to be cleared later this week. The Tigers will “take it easy” with them when it comes to contact early in fall camp.

• Golesh: “We kind of pulled back a little bit this week and next week to try to get their legs back a little bit and get them fresh. … Outside of (Williams) and the post-shoulder surgery crew, we've got everybody going into fall camp healthy, knock on wood. We've got this week and next week, but we'll be healthy going in.”

• A major name on that clean bill of health is offensive tackle Stanton Ramil, who is expected to be a top contender for a starting job despite him missing almost all of spring practices while recovering from offseason surgery. “He's had a really, really good summer. I'm really proud of where he's at. It's going to be on us and our medical team to manage his load through camp, because again, he didn't go through spring. So now it's just building up to get ready for Week 1 to ultimately be able to play, hopefully, 16 weeks.” Now, about that offensive line…

Read more

If you’re reading this when it hits your inbox on the morning of Monday, July 20, The Auburn Observer will be en route to SEC Media Days in Tampa.

I have always viewed Media Days as the unofficial start to football season. And, because we’ve now hit that point on the calendar, that means The Observer is about to start its seventh year in business.

Those words are pretty incredible for me to type. Seven years. When this started all the way back in 2020, it was an experiment to get through a pandemic season after I had been laid off from a job covering Auburn for the second time in three years.

Since pretty much Day 1 of Year 1, this has been the only job I have wanted to do. I absolutely love running an independent outlet covering Auburn football and Auburn men’s basketball — now with some Auburn baseball! (thanks, Henry) — the way I’ve always wanted to do it.

And, to be honest, it’s been a surprisingly smooth ride. I can count the number of times I’ve had any serious issues with Substack or our payment platform in these six years on my two hands, with fingers to spare. Much more importantly, the level of support we get from our subscribers is beyond anything I would have ever imagined.

The Observer launched on August 1, 2020. Because of its place on the Auburn sports calendar, the next month and change is when the majority of subscriptions renew.

That’s why I’m giving everyone a fair amount of a heads up: Starting August 1, Observer subscription prices will increase to $7/month or $70/year.

(whispers) This means, if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, joining between now and the end of July at $60 for your first year — before the price goes up — is by far the best deal.

Subscribe now

This is a decision that I have personally wrestled with for a long time now. (Multiple years, in fact.) People work hard for their money, and those of you who decide to spend some of it on a niche outlet that covers Auburn sports is something I don’t take lightly at all.

From the very beginning, I’ve wanted to be honest and transparent about what we’re doing here at The Observer. Again, you can spend that hard-earned cash on anything, and there’s nothing more frustrating than getting an unexplained hike on a subscription price.

So I would like to talk through the reasons why we have decided to make this change, starting August 1:

This bump in price has been a long time coming, honestly. We’ve been $6/month or $60/year at the most since we launched. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, $6 in August 2020 money is worth about $7.71 in July 2026 money. (And $60 back then is worth about $77.09. Math.) We haven’t changed our prices in our first six years, but it’s past time to make this adjustment to help us continue covering these teams all over the country. Also, I was a single guy living in a cheap one-bedroom apartment when this launched. I’m now married with a mortgage. Mary Kate, at the very least, will thank you for your service.

We’re more than just a two-man operation now. Back when we launched, it was just Painter and me. For a while, once Painter moved on to bigger and better things, it was just Dan and me. But we have regular contributors like Henry, Lee and AUNerd now, and we’re planning to have a staff photographer this upcoming school year for the first time ever. This price increase will give us more flexibility to get more people involved at The Observer and give you guys more bang for your buck over time.

We think this price is still a pretty good deal. When we launched The Observer, we promised you three newsletters and two podcasts per week. I ran the numbers this weekend, and we’re actually averaging 366 posts per year — more than one per day. Considering there are a lot of non-Auburn newsletter and podcast sites out there that don’t have nearly the sheer volume as we have for a price of much more than $7/month, we think we’re still offering a very competitive price on what we deliver.

Since we made it six years, we can move past the 6-themed pricing. OK, this isn’t a real reason. But there is some nice synergy to the 7 in Year 7. You know I like a bit.

For those of you who are annual subscribers to The Observer, the new price of $70/year won’t kick in until your subscription renews — since you already have paid.

For those of you who are monthly subscribers to The Observer, the new price of $7/month will kick in on your renewal date in August. Again, if you would like to switch to an annual subscription to save some money, this is a great time.

For those of you who are still among the Observers Unlimited tier that greatly helped us get the whole thing off the ground back in the day, you’re all still incredible, generous and good-looking.

And for those of you who might not be willing to pay the extra buck or so per month to continue your subscription, no hard feelings there. We’ll always appreciate your time supporting us, and the door is always open for a return.

If you ever have any questions about your subscription, feel free to email me at the1andonlyJF@gmail.com or reply to any Observer email you’ve gotten. I am certain there might be some hiccups or bugs with this price increase in August. Reach out to me, and I’ll help work through those as best as I can.

Again, this is a decision that I’ve debated internally for a long time now, but it’s long overdue. We’ve been beyond blessed to grow and are around twice the subscriber base we were at after our initial surge of launch growth back in Year 1. We want to continue to keep growing and evolving, and this change will make that possible.

We’ll have coverage from SEC Media Days in Tampa throughout the week here at The Observer. We’ve already been around for summer work for Auburn basketball, and it will be time for fall camp for Auburn football before you know it.

And it’s going to be our seventh year of doing this with y’all. I’ve now officially been doing The Observer longer than any other job covering Auburn combined. This is by far the most excited I’ve ever been to start a school year of coverage.

Thank you all so much for your support and helping us #EstablishIt. Let’s. Go.

Justin Ferguson
The Auburn Observer

Subscribe now

AUBURN — Welcome back to the mailbag. Once again, we’ve done it. We’ve made it to the big preseason mile marker known as SEC Media Days.

Truth be told, I feel like this summer has flown by — in a good way. We haven’t had any real dry stretches of stuff to write about or talk about here on The Observer. There’s a good excitement level from the fans about Auburn football for a change, and Auburn basketball did a strong job of capitalizing on that bounce-back NIT run. It also helped that Henry jumped aboard to cover Auburn baseball for us, too.

But SEC Media Days, which will kick off in a few days in Tampa, is always a sign that the offseason is coming to a close and that our big sports here are just around the corner. And, I have to say: It’s been a lot more fun looking ahead to the new era under Alex Golesh than where we’ve usually been this time of the year at The Observer.

We likely won’t have a mailbag next Friday, since I’ll be on the move quite a bit with all the SEC Media Days madness. The good news is that you guys once again came through with a very fun group of football and basketball questions to make this a great edition of an offseason mailbag.

Thanks as always for supporting The Observer. Being back at basketball practice these last couple of weeks has got me excited for covering football fall camp. I’m glad y’all will be here with us for all of it. Let’s go.

Subscribe now

In your estimation, how do Auburn’s position groups stack up against the rest of the conference? And which ones have the best chance for improving their standing as the season progresses?

Paul

At quarterback, I would say Auburn easily sits in the top half of the league and has a ceiling inside the top four or so. Byrum Brown had the best yards per attempt and quarterback rating marks last season of any quarterback currently in the SEC — and he was an elite rushing threat. Even if you add a Group of Five tax to his stats, there’s still a lot to like here. Ole Miss and Texas A&M return starters from playoff teams, and Texas has a clear superstar. But I don’t think there’s a ton of separation between Brown and, say, the new LSU quarterback who had good, not great, numbers in the Big 12 and is coming off an injury. The peak version of Brown is truly elite.

The running back room is another one that I think is easily in the top half of the league with potential to get into top-four status. While four of the top five running backs in the SEC are back, Jeremiah Cobb was not far behind at No. 6 last year. If Bryson Washington is back to his best Baylor self, Omar Mabson II continues to develop well and both Nykahi Davenport and Tae Meadows just give you what they showed in the Group of Five last year — there might not be a deeper group in the conference. Top-end talent is higher elsewhere, but this is a room built to do well right away.

Read more

Justin and Dan talk Auburn basketball’s summer and what they expect to see different from the Tigers next season. Topics for this subscribers-only episode include:

• a few rounds of Who’s More Older???

• Justin’s takeaways from basketball practice

• similarities between the makeup of this roster and the best Auburn teams of the last decade

• can Tahaad and Kevin become Auburn’s next legendary double act?

• Dan says both “Dowdzilla” and “Narcisse and Desist”

• thoughts on Auburn baseball’s new hitting coach

• mailbag questions about soundtracks, depictions of real people in movies, and ways that the musical taste of The Guys was influenced by their parents

• vital Grubserver info

• and so much more!

This is a premium podcast for Observer subscribers only. You can join by clicking the button below or going to this link.

Subscribe now

Follow Dan (@dnpck) and Justin (@JFergusonAU) on Twitter.

Read more

AUBURN — New Auburn forward Thomas Dowd calls himself a “workhorse,” but his last school gave him a much more interesting animal nickname — “The Worm.”

Yes, just like Dennis Rodman.

While Dowd won’t rock the rainbow hair or the wedding dress any time soon, he got the Rodman comparison from former Troy head coach Scott Cross because of his impressive rebounding for someone who might be considered an undersized forward.

“I have a shirt and everything,” Dowd said, smiling. “I wear it to games sometimes.”

At Troy, the 6-foot-8 Dowd became one of the best board men in all of mid-major college basketball. Last season, he led the Sun Belt in rebounds (10.1 per game) and was eighth among all Division I players in total defensive boards. In all three of his years at Troy, he ranked inside the top 15 in the conference in offensive rebounds.

Subscribe now

Dowd doesn’t have ultra-dominant physicality to his game, and his vertical leap won’t blow you away. He’s got a standard wingspan for a combo forward.

But the Dothan native just gets results on the glass.

During a summer scrimmage inside Neville Arena early Wednesday morning, Dowd helped his squad come from behind to win by creating extra possessions with offensive rebounds. He beat out bigger matchups in the air and secured 50-50 balls against quicker opponents with ease.

The Tigers, armed with more 3-point shooting threats after this offseason’s roster renovation, then cashed in on those second and third chances from beyond the arc.

“The game we won today was because of him, and that’s all I can say,” said veteran guard Kevin Overton, referring to the scrimmage victory. “He’s incredible.”

Read more

AUBURN — When SEC Media Days kicks off next week in Tampa, some of the biggest stars in college football will be there to represent their schools.

More than half of the conference’s teams are sending their starting quarterbacks, like Texas’ Arch Manning, Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss, Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed and Georgia’s Gunner Stockton. Auburn is getting in on that action, too, with Byrum Brown returning to his old stomping grounds alongside head coach Alex Golesh.

There are others on the attendee list that are among the most well-known players at their respective positions. Ole Miss’ Kewan Lacy and Florida’s Jaden Baugh were two of the SEC’s top three running backs last season. Texas’ Colin Simmons and LSU’s Whit Weeks are household names on defense. Alabama’s Ryan Coleman-Williams, no stranger to Auburn fans, was a video game cover athlete last year.

One of the players joining Brown and Golesh in Tampa will be Auburn kicker Alex McPherson, the younger brother of an NFL starter and a former top-ranked recruit at his position who has now become a well-known story across college football for his remarkable battle through a disease that could have easily ended his career.

Sending Brown to Media Days was a no-brainer, as he’s the face of the new era for Auburn football after being one of the best quarterbacks in the country last season.

Sending McPherson to Media Days was also an easy call, considering his incredible story of perseverance and the fact he could end up in the NFL as early as next year.

But then there’s Champ Anthony.

Subscribe now

When Auburn announced Anthony as a player representative for SEC Media Days on Tuesday morning, that might have come as a surprise to some.

Fans probably expected someone like All-American linebacker Xavier Atkins — although the junior hasn’t done many interviews since he got to Auburn — or standout kick returner Rayshawn Pleasant, as they’re getting plenty of all-conference love this offseason.

There might have also been predictions for the likes of another veteran transfer such as center Cole Best, defensive tackle Cody Sigler, edge rusher Da’Shawn Womack or any of the new wide receivers from USF. They all got plenty of buzz during spring practices for what they were bringing to the Plains.

Instead, Auburn is sending a defensive back who wasn’t able to do much during spring practices. It’s honestly unclear what his role might look like in the secondary this fall, considering the depth the Tigers have there right now.

In fact, Anthony has spent a total of three seasons at Auburn and has only totaled 403 snaps on the defensive side of the ball, per Pro Football Focus. To put that number into perspective, Auburn had 20 different players exceed that snap count in the 2025 season alone.

If you add up the career snap counts of all the offensive and defensive players that Auburn has sent to SEC Media Days in the last decade — specialists like McPherson are an obvious exception — Anthony has played the least amount of college football.

Anthony is set to have the fewest career snaps of any SEC Media Day representative for Auburn since Jeremy Johnson went in 2015. While Johnson didn’t have the season that anyone expected that fall, the logic was sound: He stood out when backing up Nick Marshall in 2013 and 2014 and was going to be the star quarterback.

But why is Anthony going to Tampa next week? Why is Auburn sending a player who hasn’t played 200 snaps in any of his previous three seasons with the program? Why did the Tigers buck the trend of the biggest names going to Media Days?

Because Anthony means a ton to Auburn football — and he deserves this platform.

Read more

Dan takes over this landmark episode and leads Justin through their Big Four topics: Auburn football, basketball, music and movies. Specifically, the topics are:

• forecasting the chances that Auburn’s football team overachieves this season

• analyzing the weaknesses of Auburn’s newly renovated men’s basketball roster

• The Guys recommend each other some bands/artists from outside their respective comfort zones

• a shockingly popular 90s film on Letterboxd

• a whole lot more!

If you’re receiving this free podcast episode and would like to upgrade to a paid subscription that gives you access to all stories and premium podcast episodes, subscribe using the button below or clicking this link.

Subscribe now

Follow Dan (@dnpck) and Justin (@JFergusonAU) on Twitter.

AUBURN — If it felt like Auburn football wasted more scoring opportunities than it finished last year, you were onto something.

In fact, in each of the last two seasons, Auburn turned less than half of its trips inside the red zone into touchdowns. The Tigers finished both 2024 and 2025 scoring touchdowns just 48.78% of their times inside the opponent’s 20-yard line.

Only 13 teams in the FBS had a red-zone touchdown percentage of lower than 50% in 2025, and the exact same number was below that threshold in 2024 as well. But only two teams were below 50% in both seasons: Northwestern and… Auburn.

Northwestern was led by a former defensive coordinator who abruptly became the interim head coach after a scandal and was ranked in the 50s of the Team Talent Composite, placing no higher than 15th in its own conference in both seasons.

Auburn was led by a longtime head coach who had been known for his offensive prowess earlier in his career and had a top-20 roster in college football in both seasons after going all-in on rebuilding through high school recruiting.

Same results. Well, actually, Northwestern at least made it to a bowl game in 2025.

Subscribe now

Of all the strikes against Hugh Freeze during his time on the Plains, the inability to put points on the board — especially in clear-cut scoring situations — was his great undoing. Things only got worse for the Tigers in conference play: They scored six touchdowns on 16 red-zone visits vs. SEC opponents in 2025 before Freeze’s firing.

Over the final six times an Auburn offense got into the red zone under Freeze, it scored a grand total of zero touchdowns. There have only been three offenses in the last six seasons of SEC football to finish a season with a sub-50% touchdown percentage in the red zone. Auburn is responsible for two of them now.

Finishing drives has been arguably the biggest problem for Auburn football during this brutal stretch of results for the program. The touchdown rate started plummeting toward the end under Gus Malzahn, and it wasn’t any better in the short-lived Bryan Harsin experiment. Freeze’s first season was much more successful, but then the bottom fell out to historically bad lows over the next two.

And this is where Alex Golesh and his staff come into the picture.

Golesh’s reputation for offensive football has been well-documented, and it shows up in various ways on the stat sheets. However, the biggest difference from what Auburn has had to what it could have now under him is finishing drives — and that’s essentially what the sport of football is all about.

Here is where Auburn has ranked in offensive red-zone touchdown percentage in the FBS over the last six seasons, compared to what offenses that have either been coordinated by Golesh (UCF 2020, Tennessee 2021-2022) or head coached by him (USF 2023-2025) were putting up in that same category:

Read more

Justin and Dan answer your mailbag questions about Auburn football, Auburn basketball, BBQ sides and movies that are 20-40 years old. Topics for this subscribers-only episode include:

• football position groups that intrigue and concern

• our favorite football assistant coaches ever

• the point where microtransactions reflect contemptible greed

• the benefits of AU basketball going overseas

• unlikely rivals

• Auburn athletes who could have picked soccer and thrived

• BBQ sides

• beverage and cough medicine sponsorships we’d consider

• Emily Blunt

• movies from 1986-2006 that will endure as classics

• a rousing rendition of Who’s More Senior?

• and a whole lot more!

This is a premium podcast for Observer subscribers only. You can join by clicking the button below or going to this link.

Subscribe now

Follow Dan (@dnpck) and Justin (@JFergusonAU) on Twitter.

Read more