Auburn Band And Choir Surprise Team To Prepare For 2026 Season

The University’s marching band and choir joined one of the football team’s meetings to teach players an important part of Auburn’s culture.

Auburn band members surprised the program's football team during a meeting this week, showing off the War Eagle culture. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

New Auburn Tigers head coach Alex Golesh has only been on The Plains for eight months and has already been engulfed by the culture. He used the end of Tuesday’s meeting to make sure the 40 incoming transfers were just as prepared to represent Auburn University.

In a video to the football team’s X account, Golesh announced that both the associate director of bands and director of choir will be joining their meeting to hype up the roster and teach the fight song, “War Eagle,” to all of the new faces on campus.

The guys are ready for Saturdays 🔥🔊@auburnbands stopped by to teach the fight songs and brought the energy with them! 🦅 pic.twitter.com/0OPw12dEAb

— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) August 18, 2026

As the marching band entered the room, causing roars of excitement from the roster, associate director of bands Corey Spurlin took the floor to speak to the room. 

Spurlin’s speech had many memorable moments. The first of which was during his thanks to Golesh; he revealed that in his 20 years with the program, no coach has ever invited him to perform for the Tigers in private to put everyone on the same page. After revealing that to the staff and players, he explained that to be on the same page, the band likes to call themselves “thermostats.”

“We don’t want to be a thermometer; we want to be a thermostat where we set the temperature for what we do," he said.

The quote got a rise out of the entire room, setting the tone for the rest of the session. The “thermostat” metaphor will definitely help build the identity Golesh has been preaching since he set foot in Auburn.

The marching band then performed for the Tigers before the choir took over, giving out the lyrics to the “War Eagle.” The players then sang along with the choir before the band joined back in for the finale, and all the players stood up and sang the newly learned fight song proudly.

Following the celebrations, the players began to swag surf in their rows as the band played one final song to hype up the Tigers only a handful of weeks out from the Week 1 opener against Baylor on September 5th.

The video does a lot more than just hype up fans and players alike with the season just around the corner. The footage as a whole displays the camaraderie and chemistry of the Auburn Tigers that has been implemented by Golesh before they have even stepped on the field for a game together.

Whether it was the amount of transfers that followed over from Golesh’s previous tenure at the University of South Florida or Auburn’s current success of the 2027 recruiting class with a consensus top 12 ranking, the new head coach is clearly trying to build a culture that has seemingly escaped Auburn, buying in to the widely recognized phrase in the Auburn Creed: “I believe in Auburn and love it.”

Teaching the players the Auburn traditions is the perfect way to do so.

Both returning Tigers and the incoming players will hope to have memorized the fight song and stay hyped up from the band’s performance leading up to their season opener in the 2026 Aflac Kickoff game against the Baylor Bears on September 5, as well as the home opener the following week against Southern Miss.

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