Alex Golesh Not Pleased With Auburn After Friday Scrimmage: ‘We didn’t look like a veteran team’

On Friday, the Auburn Tigers held an 11-on-11 scrimmage that was just about all-out, with a few exceptions thrown the way of Byrum Brown and a few other Tigers who are recovering from injury and were in non-contact jerseys.

Scrimmages are often the best way to understand where a team truly stands ahead of actual in-season play, but Alex Golesh was not pleased with his team on Friday afternoon.

“I would walk out and say, overall, a sloppy day on both sides,” Golesh said. “You could make an excuse and say, man, first scrimmage, first time really … We didn’t look like a veteran team. We looked like a team that has highs and lows and is emotional and rides with that, which is the complete opposite of what we want. So, a lot to work on, like a ton to work on. And that’s the truth on that.”

In a kind of twisted way, this is actually a really good sign for Auburn fans, as teams in the past, particularly under Hugh Freeze, tended to be almost exactly like what Golesh just described: emotional and riding the highs and lows of that emotion. While Freeze seemed to be satisfied with that style of play, Golesh is not.

However, Golesh’s criticism was not limited to just the emotion and style of the team–in fact, he had quite a few more issues with both sides of the ball.

“There were some bright spots, but there was also some pre-snap stuff that is not how you can function offensively,” he said. “There were some bright spots on defense, some tackling stuff that looked like our second time tackling. And so we need a bunch of work tackling. We need a bunch of work perimeter blocking. We need a bunch of work pre-snap. We need a bunch of crowd noise work. I told the entire team, coaches, everybody, humble the heck out of yourselves here. Take the coaching.”

Golesh is clearly not messing around with his new role as the head coach of the Tigers, which is a welcome sign to many of the Auburn faithful, even if these comments are not exactly the most encouraging. However, the silver lining of these comments is the fact that Golesh seems to know exactly what needs to be fixed, and with just under a month before the season starts, he will need to get these issues fixed in a hurry if he wants to have a contender this fall.

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