Auburn Continues Top-Tier Offseason Work With Surprising Strategy

The Auburn Tigers, now under former USF head coach Alex Golesh, have been working this offseason tirelessly in an effort to prevent the program’s sixth straight losing season. The team has employed a number of strategies to accomplish this goal, most famously staying in a hotel for the duration of fall camp, but the Tigers’ newest strategy may be the most interesting one yet.

On Wednesday, in the middle of regularly scheduled practice, sounds of horns and whistles suddenly began to rain down on the Tigers, who were all quickly rushed to a specific field for an impromptu 11-on-11 scrimmage that simulated real game pressure.

The exercise was kept highly secret from the players, and even some of the coaches, as defensive line coach Vontrell King-Williams recounted later that day.

“I had no idea,” King-Williams said. “It was good… You never know what’s getting ready to happen in the game of football. You really don’t know, and so you have to be able to adapt. That was fun. I actually enjoyed it a lot, and shoot, you get to play more football.”

This choice to exclude some coaches from any advance notice paints an interesting picture of Golesh’s strategy on the Plains this preseason: he is not just looking to have his players ready for the upcoming season; he is also training specific position coaches to be ready to make massive changes (or even small tweaks) at a moment’s notice.

“The ability to say, ‘Alright, put the ball down, let’s go,’” King-Williams continued. “It was a surprise to everybody, and I thought they all brought the juice that came with it.”

The Tigers have been relentlessly working at having their team–and now, clearly, their coaches– ready for the upcoming season, as it will certainly be a grind in the SEC’s new nine-game in-conference schedule.

Golesh’s squad is set to face a litany of top teams, including Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama and more, so every extra second of preparation, every moment where something can be taught and every situation needs to be hammered in to be ready for top matchups like these if Auburn wants to compete–particularly because of the team’s relative youth.

“Just as a group, it’s very interesting, very fun to coach,” King-Williams concluded. “At the core, we’re a very young group, and it’s really exciting to see it because you start seeing the growth, and while everyone has played a bit, it’s still about getting those guys Saturday-ready and putting some adversity on them. That’s what camp is about. It’s been fun to coach those guys. They’ve been growing every day, been challenging them, and it’s been fun to see.”

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