Auburn Co-OC Kodi Burns Talks Tigers’ Biggest Question Ahead of 2026

Another USF staffer who worked under Alex Golesh, Burns will look to replicate success from the Bulls last season.

Auburn Tigers associate head coach Kodi Burns is interviewed at the Woltosz Football Performance Center in Auburn, Ala. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Alex Golesh, the latest head coach of the Auburn Tigers, has quite a few questions surrounding his program ahead of his inaugural season on the Plains, though perhaps none have received as much screen time as one: how will Auburn’s offense, which is largely composed of USF transfers, acclimate to a full SEC schedule?

After all, most of the Tigers’ receivers, their quarterback, one of their running backs and two of their offensive linemen all transferred in from USF this past season, which is in the AAC, a starkly different conference from the SEC, which is largely considered to be, at the lowest, a top-two most difficult conference in the country.

However, the Tigers’ co-offensive coordinator, Kodi Burns, who also happens to be a USF transplant, still has supreme confidence in his unit, despite the rigor of the conference they will be taking on this year.

“Yeah, I think a little bit of it is overblown,” Burns said. “If you look at the schedule from our team last year, we did play SEC teams and it worked out pretty good, and so those guys do have experience from that standpoint.”

The Bulls only played in one SEC matchup last year, against the Florida Gators, in a matchup Golesh’s program won, 18-16. Of course, that win is not the biggest vote of confidence, especially given the fact that the Gators fired their head coach and were in much of a similar boat to the Tigers, but any win over any SEC program is proof that this unit is able to win in the SEC.

Additionally, the Tigers look much stronger ahead of this season than last year’s Bulls did at the same time, as they have transplanted their offensive line with several experienced transfers, they have built a dominant running back room led by Jeremiah Cobb and Bryson Washington and the offense now has Auburn’s top-level defense to rely on.

So, of course, there will be growing pains as the Bulls’ 2025 unit adjusts to the grind that is a nine-game SEC schedule, though, for what it’s worth, no player in the league has ever played in a nine-game SEC schedule before, so there are bound to be growing pains for all teams. After all, the SEC isn’t considered one of the strongest conferences in football for nothing.

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