Alex Golesh is a tight ends guy. What does that mean for Auburn?

The Tigers' new head coach put a lot of stock into the position, and that emphasis is already showing up in spring practices.

(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — Even though he’s still a few months shy of his 42nd birthday, Alex Golesh has been coaching in college football for more than 20 years.

After spending two years as a student assistant at Ohio State, followed by three years as a graduate assistant at Northern Illinois and Oklahoma State, Golesh got his first position coach job at Toledo. He had one year as a running backs coach, then moved to the position that would define the next decade and change of his career: Tight end.

Golesh rose through the ranks in college football as a tight ends coach. Two years at the position at Toledo got him to his first power-conference job at Illinois, where he spent four seasons. Then, in four seasons at Iowa State, Golesh was in charge of some of the most productive tight ends in the entire country.

That caught the eye of Josh Heupel, who brought him in to be his co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach during a successful 2020 season at UCF. Golesh then followed Heupel to Tennessee for two prolific years of offense on Rocky Top, which he parlayed into a head coaching job at USF.

It’s easy to think of Golesh’s offensive style as finesse and flash, considering the ultra-wide splits and the big-play passing game that he helped orchestrate at UCF, Tennessee and USF. But the Russian-born, Ohio-raised Golesh is big on his attacks having true grit — which makes perfect sense for a former tight ends coach.

“That group has to be really good for us to be where we want to be,” Golesh said during his first week of spring practices as Auburn’s new head coach. “… Those guys have so much to do with the offense, run game and pass game. It’s a critical group for us and a group that’s got to show up.”

And it’s important to know that importance might not always show up in the box score. Unless you have a generational type of talent like Brock Bowers was at Georgia, tight ends are usually going to be outside your top tier of receiving options in a successful modern offense. For example: Rivaldo Fairweather led Auburn in receiving in 2023, but that offense ranked 95th nationally in yards per pass attempt.

At USF in 2025, tight ends made up just 10.8% of the reception share and just 11.6% of the target share. In 2024, those numbers were even lower: 7.6% and 7.7%. In 2023, they were at 9.1% and 8.3%. The highest numbers for a Golesh-coordinated offense were 15.2% and 16.3%, during the 2021 season at Tennessee.

Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find that tight ends are truly vital to this offense.