What makes Alex Golesh's Year 1 staff at Auburn truly stand out
Especially compared to his last two predecessors, Golesh has a group of assistants that is much heavier on relevant coaching experience.
AUBURN — When Auburn announced that its next head football coach was — once again — coming from the Group of Five ranks, some Tigers fans might have winced.
And, even though the first assistant Alex Golesh brought with him from USF to Auburn was literally a beloved former player and coach for the program in Kodi Burns, there was skepticism online about his ability to put together a strong staff.
After all, Golesh had only spent two previous seasons in the SEC, serving as the offensive coordinator for Tennessee’s high-octane offense in 2021 and 2022. He had only spent three seasons as a head coach, period, rebuilding a struggling USF program back into a contender in the American Athletic Conference.
In the first couple of days of Golesh’s tenure, the rumor among the recruiting sphere was that he wanted to have a new staff in place quickly. But, by the end of National Signing Day, only a handful of names had been confirmed — the retention of defensive coordinator DJ Durkin and several USF-to-Auburn moves.
When Golesh took the podium for a lengthy press conference a week after he was officially introduced, Auburn hadn’t officially announced much in terms of a new staff, and there were several spots still open. Golesh, who said his top priority in his first week was actually talking to current players, addressed that.
“We’re close,” Golesh said. “Fortunate to be coming from a place where we had elite level coaches, elite level support staff. Brought a handful, going to bring some more. And then, (we have) the opportunity to go and hire the absolute best. The way we’ve approached this hiring process is really, really simple. There’s a standard of how we’re going to do things here, I spoke about it a week ago today. That goes with bringing elite people in.
“Every conversation I’ve had has been literally, ‘Man, this person’s really good, this person’s really great.’ That’s awesome. I want elite. We want elite at every single spot… Every single aspect of the program. We’ve got the resources to go out and hire the best people in the country, and that’s exactly what we’ve tried to do as we’re continuing to fill this staff out. It’s going to take a minute to get everything filled.”
It took eight more days for Auburn to officially finalize and announce Golesh’s first on-field staff on the Plains. The last hire was something of an eye-opener: Larry Scott, who spent the last six seasons as the head coach of FCS program Howard.
“Larry’s the kind of coach you want in your building,” Golesh said in a statement. “He knows the position, he knows how to develop young men, and he’s done it at a high level for a long time. Our tight ends are going to benefit immediately from his experience and his approach.
“Adding an elite coach like Larry with his experience in the SEC and as a head coach and coordinator is huge for the program.”
That last sentence stands out, because it became a theme throughout Golesh’s process of building a Year 1 staff at Auburn.
And that wasn’t exactly the case for the last two coaching changes, in hindsight.