How The Auburn Tigers’ Recent Weekend Illustrates Alex Golesh’s Tenacity

Since Auburn has hired its new head coach, the program has seen his prowess on the recruiting trail at times. This past weekend perhaps showed the most.

Auburn head coach Alex Golesh has received several recruiting wins in the last week. | Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Auburn Tigers have been on a recruiting heater as of late, which has revealed an underrated aspect of new Auburn head coach Alex Golesh: sheer tenacity. The Tigers have won several key commitments, lost others and even have had a top-tier player flip from their program, but Golesh seems to have never broken stride in his efforts.

In fact, this past weekend may be the perfect microcosm to illustrate exactly how tenacious Golesh has been in recruiting. The Tigers led things off on Friday with the commitment of James Pace, a four-star edge rusher who is currently rated as the second-best edge rusher from the state of Maryland, a state that is rapidly developing into a pipeline for future Tigers.

Pace’s commitment, though impressive, was far from all the work the Tigers did this weekend, though. In fact, amidst rumors that Kingston Miles, a fellow four-star, was trending towards a flip to Missouri, Golesh simply went out and found himself another running back in Khamoni Williams, a three-star who flipped his commitment from Missouri to Auburn on Sunday.

Then, before Miles even had time to announce his flip, the Tigers picked up yet another recruit, this time in the form of three-star safety Preston Williams. It was a two-Williams kind of day for the Tigers, though before the clock struck midnight, Miles, as the rumors suggested, did indeed flip his commitment from Auburn to Missouri, representing the biggest loss the Tigers’ 2027 class has had thus far.

The loss of such a big-time recruit would have rattled many a coach, but Alex Golesh seemed to be completely unfazed, as on Monday night, the Tigers kept right on rolling and earned the commitment of Nasir Banks, a three-star athlete who primarily plays safety. 

Then, on Tuesday, the Tigers picked up two top-level commits before the clock even struck noon, as around 10:30 that morning, four-star receiver Deshawn Hall announced that he would, too, be committing to Auburn. Hall’s commitment is one of the biggest wins the Tigers have had this year, as just over a week before his commitment, Hall was over a 90% favorite to land at Penn State.

Was Golesh done? At this point, that answer is just about always a clear and definitive no. The Tigers then went on to pick up Cedrick Simmons, a fellow wide receiver who had been the subject of a massive recruiting battle with Alabama. 

At the start of the weekend, Alex Golesh’s class was ranked among the top-10 in the country. As the weekend rolled on and Miles departed, it became unclear as to how exactly the Tigers’ ranking would suffer from his loss, but Golesh did not wait around long enough to find out.

In fact, not only did Golesh flip a running back to fill a roster spot that was full at the time, but he also robbed Penn State of a top-level receiver, took down Alabama in the commitment of another wideout and bolstered his defense in his spare time. Now, with all of the new commits, the Tigers’ class is, once again, rated within the top-10 in the country by 247Sports.

 If that is not top-level tenacity, then, well, I would have a hard time telling you what is. All that is left for Golesh to do now is win games with his top-tier talent.

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