Auburn HC Alex Golesh Details the Most Important Aspect of College Football in This Era

Without this intangible part of a football player, Alex Golesh believes it makes or breaks how a program performs in a given season.

Auburn Tigers head coach Alex Golesh is building a culture that prides itself on focus, whether in practice or in a game. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

A group of underclassmen and transfers has the Auburn Tigers looking to make noise in the SEC next season. However, head coach Alex Golesh brings up an important aspect of his culture that he continues to reinforce. 

Perhaps no college football team can succeed if it’s not implemented: focus. 

“The ability to focus in college football is the name of the game,” he said after Wednesday’s scrimmage.  “Can you get a group of young men to worry about the team, their process and everything that goes into preparing for a game?”

Golesh believes that a lot of other things come with the idea of focus. Giving everything a player has on a given play comes from the details, and focusing played a significant task in doing so. Even with a young team that has had to gel early, the Auburn head coach is preaching that idea to overachieve in 2026. 

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And it’s been paying off with the Tigers thus far. 

“A lot of that comes with being a young football team and we are super, super young in some key spots,” he said. “That’s again, the emphasis the next two days. I do believe the intent is getting close to right. I do believe the physicality is getting close to right.”

In the beginning of Golesh’s tenure, Auburn won’t have the influx of five-stars and talent as other SEC programs tend to have. Schools like Georgia, Alabama and LSU are among the rich that will bring in statement classes with each season. While the Tigers are doing that with their 2027 class, that won’t be for another year. 

But talent won’t always bring the focus that he’s advocating for.

“The whole game is, we have talent and the reason why teams win, certainly, you can have a giant talent gap, but the reason why teams win is because they’re focused,” he said, “and that’s focus certainly play to play, series to series, quarter to quarter, but focused throughout a week, and that’s the hardest thing to do.”

Golesh says that there’s simplicity with it, too. Although the X’s and O’s are the backbone of what makes a great offense or a scheme, he’s been breaking it down too the most easy idea for his players. 

Beat your matchup, since there’s no number advantage with who’s on the field, and you help win the play.

“As much as experience, from a football side, matters, the game of football is 11 1-on-1 matchups,” Golesh said, “and certainly scheme matters and things in terms of what you do, blocking, tackling, all of that, that matters.”

Auburn will have a runway to get this focus in tact before getting into the heart of its schedule, but with Baylor on the horizon in under three weeks, that focus will be the critical factor that what allows the Tigers to be an under-the-radar pick in the SEC this season. 

“That, to me, is where maturity and experience comes from, if that makes sense,” Golesh said. 

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