Auburn QB Byrum Brown is Taking a Coach's Approach to His 2026 Season

Not only do the Auburn Tigers have competition on the football field for contested starting roles, but head coach Alex Golesh is competing with one of his players from a preparation standpoint: quarterback Byrum Brown.

The banter between the two involves who is in the football facility, whether it’s during the early morning or late night.

“If that dude shows up here before me, he’ll take a picture of my parking spot and be like, ‘Where you at?’” Golesh said on Monday. “Now, at the same time, I’ll send him a picture when I’m leaving and say, ‘Hope sleep is going well,’ but that’s how he is. He sees himself very much as a coach.”

Brown and his head coach have been through plenty of snaps together during his four-year career, beginning his fifth season in what is considered as the toughest league in college football. To be adjusted for the jump, a long routine of preparation has been instilled in his routine ahead of the 2026 season.

Golesh sees a mentality that is similar to some of the people on his own staff.

“I’ve said it before, he is, now in his fifth year, as particular as anybody I’ve ever been around in terms of what their process looks like,” he said, “and that’s what he Sunday looks like into Monday into Tuesday. He truly is a coach.”

It’s not just the preparation that he does on the field, which has caught the eye of some of the trainers that Brown has worked with throughout the offseason. Learning and recovery remain at the center of it for the dual-threat quarterback, who wants to succeed at this level of the game after showing flashes against top opponents while at USF.

“I mean, he was here all day yesterday. He’s two doors down, sitting there watching film,” Golesh said. “He’s super particular, and that’s, like, everything, from what he eats to truly the order and the sequence of which he watches, to then his prehab into his rehab.”

The Auburn quarterback is leading by example, though. Now, multiple other position groups are following in Brown’s footsteps from a preparation standout with Sept. 5’s matchup against Baylor on the horizon.

“The neat thing about Byrum, he’s confident enough now in his fifth year that there’s wideouts in there with him. There’s tight ends in there with him,” Golesh said, “and it gives confidence to the entire organization when you see your quarterback is here all day.”

For the underclassmen on the team, as well as the rest of the quarterback room, it makes it easy to learn the process of a successful college football player. Brown hasn’t had the chance to fully show it in the SEC yet, but if previous results have anything to say, his preparation will have the Tigers’ offense ready to go in 2026.

But it always starts from what you do every day before the game on the gridiron.

“You talk about elite process, like he is the prime example of what it looks like to prepare, and I think that’s why he’s so hard on himself, too,” Golesh said. “Because if it doesn’t go his way, he goes back into, ‘Man, where did I jack up my process?’”

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