Auburn Ranked in Top-25 Best Football Programs by USA Today

The Auburn Tigers have not been themselves since 2019, when they had their last winning season, but that does not mean that, all-time, they have been a bad program. In fact, according to USA Today, the Tigers are the 21st-best program in college football, despite their struggles in recent years.

“These are dark days for Auburn,” USAToday’s Paul Myerberg, Blake Toppmeyer, Jordan Mendoza and Eddie Timanus wrote. “The Tigers endured five consecutive losing seasons, their bleakest period since the late 1940s. Auburn’s loyal fan base deserves better. Recent woes aside, this accomplished program achieved undefeated seasons under three coaches since the 1990s and won a national title in 2010. From Pat Sullivan to Bo Jackson to Cam Newton, Auburn produced decorated stars. Now, it just needs to pull out of this funk.”

Undoubtedly, the Tigers have produced some of the best teams of all time as well as some of the best football players of all time, so what does it need to do to ‘pull out of this funk,’ as they put it?

It starts with the man at the top: Alex Golesh. The Tigers have been looking for a coach to replace Gus Malzahn since he was fired in mid-2020, and the two in between Malzahn and Golesh, Bryan Harsin and Hugh Freeze, have both failed spectacularly to bring the program back to national relevancy. Golesh, unlike his predecessors, is not focused on winning immediately, but rather on setting the foundation that will work to set the program in the right direction.

Ironically, though Golesh is adamant that he is not focused on wins, it would not be a herculean task to surpass Freeze or Harsin’s win production at Auburn, which is a testament to just how low the bar is right now. After all, Freeze won just a single SEC game last year, and in a new, nine-game SEC slate, Golesh will have ample opportunity to improve upon last year’s production.

Recruiting-wise, Auburn has consistently been among the best programs in the country, as Hugh Freeze’s 2024 and 2025 classes both ranked among the top-10 in the country, while Golesh’s 2027 class currently ranks at No. 12, according to 247Sports. There is, of course, a gap in the 2026 class, as many recruits in that cycle were unsure of who would be coaching the Tigers, but Golesh has proven that bump in the road to be a quick one that he has swiftly moved on from.

So, if the Tigers can right the ship this year under Golesh, the program could be competing among the best in the country within just a few short years. However, if the Golesh experiment fails, like the Harsin and Freeze experiments before him, things will look darker than ever on the Loveliest Village on the Plains.

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