Auburn's QB, HC and OC are entering Year 4 together. That's rare.

Not many teams in CFB have an established trio set — and one that has been together this long is an even more exclusive club.

(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — In the transfer portal era of college football, programs searching for success can do more than just bring a new staff into the fold.

When a new head coach is hired from another school, it’s only natural for him to bring some of his assistants to his new home. It’s a practice that’s happened at every level of football for decades.

But, in the college game, the fact that players can move schools and immediately play without any penalty takes this act of importing success a step further.

The ultimate example of this came a couple of offseasons ago at Indiana, which hired Curt Cignetti from James Madison. Thirteen players and six assistants followed Cignetti. The Hoosiers won 11 games and went to the College Football Playoff. A year later, they went a perfect 16-0 and won the national championship.

When Auburn fired Hugh Freeze and replaced him with USF head coach Alex Golesh, it was easy to see why. Freeze never delivered on the promises of championship-caliber offense, which had been by far the biggest thing holding the Tigers back in the streak of losing seasons since parting ways with Gus Malzahn.

Golesh, meanwhile, had parlayed his standout seasons as the offensive coordinator for Josh Heupel at UCF and Tennessee into his first head coaching job. He took over one of the worst programs in the FBS and immediately took it to three straight bowl games, putting up some impressive offensive numbers in the process.

Auburn needed that kind of shot in the arm, especially on offense. Golesh brought over five USF assistants with him and, eventually, 13 transfers. And all but one of those coaches and all but two of those players were on the offensive side of the ball.

In any college football offense, there’s a clear-cut top three of the most important people: The head coach, the offensive coordinator and the starting quarterback. Your opinions on the order of importance may vary, especially when the head coach isn’t known for his offense. That’s not the case with Golesh, though.

Of all the transfers for Auburn’s new-look roster in 2026, the far and away No. 1 pickup was USF starting quarterback Byrum Brown. He was rumored to be the Tigers’ next starter from the moment Golesh was hired, as he had one more year of eligibility remaining after being one of the very best quarterbacks in the FBS in 2025.

While Brown, Golesh and offensive coordinator Joel Gordon are now wearing new colors and establishing themselves a new SEC home, this trio has plenty of experience with one another.

Golesh hired Gordon to be his offensive coordinator ahead of his first season at USF in 2023, and they inherited Brown. He was named the starting quarterback for that season and kept that role for three straight years, only missing time due to injury.

So, when Brown took the field for spring practices at Auburn for the first time, he wasn’t in unfamiliar territory. In fact, his inside-out knowledge of the offense that Golesh and Gordon run put him well ahead of schedule on the Plains.

“What this offense looks like right now is drastically different than what it looked like last year, in the sense that we’ve gone from 300 level to 400 level and even 500 level,” Golesh said last month. “The situational awareness is just through the roof right now, and he’s just learning and playing and seeing it on a different level. It’s really slow to him. … Every imaginable check and ‘check with me,’ hard counts, cadences, every single check is in right now.

“I’ve never been in spring ball practice 12, and every single mechanic you have is in.”

In a sport defined by massive turnover — and on a specific team defined by it in 2026 — it’s clear that Auburn has a real luxury on its hands as it looks to set the tone for a new era by bringing what worked well at USF into a program desperate for wins.

How much of a luxury is it? All you have to do is take a look around the country.