Alex Golesh’s Strategy for Byrum Brown Is a Breath of Fresh Air After Hugh Freeze Struggles

About this time last year, former Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze told the press that he was asking Auburn’s top-level defense to take it easy on his transfer quarterback, Jackson Arnold, as the Oklahoma transfer was still building his confidence after a weak year with the Sooners.

Of course, that did not exactly work out, and now both Freeze and Arnold are no longer with the program.

Conversely, this year at SEC Media Days, new Tiger head coach Alex Golesh told the press that both the offense and defense were benefiting from playing against units as good as each other in practice, with no mention of either side ‘taking it easy’ for the sake of the other.

“The goal is to play as efficiently and quickly as you can while executing with an elite level of detail,” he said. “For our defensive staff, it’s what you want to get ready."

"It's way easier to get ready for a tempo offense and then be able to slow it down where you have a little bit more time to get lined up, identify things, communicate, than the other way around where you're playing against a slow-down offense and when it's time to play an up-tempo offense, now you got to change the way you practice or how a scout team or multiple scout teams have got to operate.”

So, not only is Golesh having the defense give quarterback Byrum Brown all they have, he actually believes that the offense is a great unit to practice against for his defense. In fairness to Freeze, Golesh has a unit that is mostly already familiar with his offense scheme, which makes install and execution much easier. Freeze was operating with a brand-new quarterback to both him and the Tigers, though quite a bit more of his offense was familiar to him and his scheme.

However, Freeze was not toning back the Tiger defense in last year’s fall camp due to installation issues–it was to build confidence in his quarterback, who may have been quite confident playing against Baylor, but once the SEC schedule began, we started to see the issues with this philosophy.

Arnold, simply, was not prepared for the SEC last year, from taking sacks as a result of holding onto the ball for too long to issues with creating space and extending plays, both likely results of a dialed-back Auburn pass rush in fall camp and in practice.

On the other hand, if Brown is truly preparing against a full-strength Auburn defense and executing well, arguments about his ability to translate his elite production to the SEC could quickly be put to bed once the Tigers kick off against Florida later this year.

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