Everything we heard from Alex Golesh, DJ Durkin and Joel Gordon

After a massive roster overhaul, Auburn's head coach and two coordinators shared plenty of their thoughts on the state of the new team.

(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — Not too long ago, the first Wednesday in February was the busiest day of the college football offseason.

That isn’t the case anymore. It might still be the traditional “National Signing Day,” but there isn’t much work to be done for the big programs like Auburn. Almost every high school player signs in December, and the transfer portal is now a free-for-all single window in January.

However, Auburn did pick up one player on Signing Day: Australian Max Bourke, who will make the switch from Aussie Rules to American football as a punter. He signed at 7 a.m. Wednesday — back home in Melbourne, that is. It was still Tuesday in Auburn.

“I know everybody is here to hear about our one signee today,” Auburn head coach Alex Golesh joked Wednesday afternoon. “A big-time punter, we had to go international there. … Added a punter from Melbourne, and I'm excited about him. We've obviously got one here going into his senior year, so to have a guy here that can learn under him is certainly important.

“We don’t talk about it a whole lot, but important for us to get a guy that we can bring in and develop. Big kid, huge leg. Really neat young guy that we're excited about.”

It’s been a wild first two months and change on the job for Golesh and his new staff at Auburn, which brought in 40 new players through the transfer portal, in addition to the 20 who signed out of high school or junior college.

“We pretty much have a brand-new team,” offensive coordinator Joel Gordon, who came with Golesh from USF, said Wednesday.

Now that the dust has settled on Auburn’s 2026 roster rebuild, Golesh and his staff “actually get to coach” their own players as they go through winter training. Spring practices won’t start until March, but the work toward what the Tigers hope will be a successful Year 1 under the new regime is already underway.

And, since this was the first time Golesh had a traditional press conference at Auburn in nearly two months — along with first-time interviews for Gordon and retained defensive coordinator DJ Durkin — there was plenty to talk about Wednesday.

Here are the No-Huddle Notes from almost an hour and a half of press conferences with the Tigers’ head coach and his two coordinators. Like Golesh’s philosophy on the field, there’s a lot going on here at high speed. Let’s roll.

(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

Head coach Alex Golesh

• Golesh likes what he sees out of his new roster early: “I would tell you that collectively, at least up until this point, we brought the right guys in.” He said the Tigers tried to attack the roster rebuild from two angles, bringing in instant-impact players along with younger ones who have potential to grow into roles over time. Since every position group has at least a decent chunk of underclassmen — no small feat in the transfer portal era — it feels like the Tigers got that accomplished across the board.

• Wide receiver, offensive line, tight end and edge rusher were position groups that Golesh said were “absolute rebuilding from scratch” spots on the field. The same could also easily be said for quarterback, as Auburn lost all three scholarship quarterbacks to the portal and brought in four newcomers this winter.

• Auburn brought in 13 players from USF in the transfer portal, with 11 of them coming on the offensive side of the ball. Golesh said that’s huge for the roster transition, as these players already have established relationships and can assure their teammates that there’s a proof of concept they can trust with the new staff. Golesh: “That, I would tell you, is absolutely priceless as you go in.”

• Speaking of the USF newcomers, let’s talk new quarterback Byrum Brown…