Auburn Head Coach Alex Golesh Affirms Stance on Tampering

The Auburn Tigers head coach knows that you can try, but eventually, those tactics will catch up to you

You can try, but the Auburn coach knows it will catch up to you | Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It’s been a turbulent first month of Alex Golesh’s tenure with the Auburn Tigers, as the team’s seen 39 new additions in the wake of 37 exits. Naturally, in the modern landscape of transfer portal recruiting, tampering has become a hot topic, with just about every head coach in the SEC commenting on their distaste for it. 

Despite such widespread vitriol on the subject, it still runs rampant, as many believe it’s become a necessary evil to survive in today’s league. Golesh was clear about his stance on the issue on Thursday, when he spoke to reporters.

“Is it right to call a kid that’s on somebody else’s roster to go get him? It’s not,” Golesh said. “I think, in a lot of ways, what goes around comes around… I’m a strong believer in the football gods will find you at some point, and generally they’ll find you at the end of a game or they’ll find you on a fourth and one.”

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Golesh went on to talk about how he feels the system could be improved, and lamented the current state of the transfer portal.

“It’s been going on for a really long time in this portal era,” he said. “There eventually needs to be guardrails on this thing. I think we all want to see guardrails, rules you can operate in. The truth is, right now there aren’t any. You operate with what you feel is right.”

Tampering news has dominated headlines for weeks now, with schools like Ole Miss, LSU and others getting caught up in scandal. Even during last year’s season, Hugh Freeze, the former head coach of the Auburn Tigers, made several comments about having to retain his own locker room, though games were still being played.

Of course, there are a lot of differing opinions on the subject, with outspoken names like Dabo Swinney, who made headlines for his accusations, but Golesh’s principle is quite simple: do right by the athletes.

“The right way is doing right by the young people and doing right by your program,” Golesh concluded. “But, the pressure to win is great, and people feel it in different ways, so I’m not here to judge anyone else’s decisions and how they operate.”