How Auburn's Narrow Win Over Baylor Revealed Something Bigger

It certainly wasn’t pretty for the Auburn Tigers on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta in their 17-16 win over Baylor.

There were many struggles on both sides of the ball, from the offensive line’s ability to garner any sort of push up front to the late-down struggles on defense — it was far from perfect in Alex Golesh’s Auburn debut.

Senior quarterback Byrum Brown threw three interceptions, the first three-pick game of his career, and defensive coordinator DJ Durkin’s unit surrendered 333 yards through the air from Baylor’s DJ Lagway.

However, despite the fact that Auburn faces many struggles and will have to fix a multitude of things moving forward if they want to truly compete this season, the Tigers’ victory this past weekend symbolizes something bigger, but also somewhat simple.

They found a way to win.

And that’s something Auburn fans couldn’t say about their team last season.

The Tigers finished an abhorrent 0-6 in one-score games in 2025, and the only other loss came by 10 points to Georgia, a game in which Auburn could’ve led by 17 points in the first half if Jackson Arnold hadn’t fumble at the goal line. On a larger scale, they went 1-12 in their last 13 one-score contests before the Baylor game.

Contrary to Saturday, Auburn always seemed to find a new way to lose under former head coach Hugh Freeze. Looking back at last year’s losses at Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky, and even Alabama, the Tigers always failed to make the winning play.

Since arriving on the Plains, one of the most prominent messages Golesh has preached is the importance of “finishing” — finishing drives, finishing plays, and finishing games by being the team to break through in important moments in crunch time to win.

Golesh saw the fruit of that labor on Saturday, when Auburn safety Eric Winters stuffed Baylor tight end Matthew Klopfenstein inches short of the goal line on a 2-point conversion attempt with nine seconds remaining to seal a 17-16 victory.

It also rang true on the previous drive, as Brown led the offense on a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to take a seven-point lead. While Brown didn’t exactly produce an impressive stat line, his veteran experience and ability to take over a game when needed is something Auburn has lacked for many years, especially at the quarterback position.

So, overall, as Golesh pointed out in his last two press conferences, Auburn certainly has to deal with a great number of battles and areas to clean up before the Florida Gators come to Jordan-Hare Stadium next weekend.

Sure, maybe fans expected a more polished product in Week 1, but if that game was played with the team and coaching staff from a year ago, Auburn most likely would’ve lost due to their inability to get over the hump.

But because of a newly established culture instilled by Golesh and company, the program seems to boast a new “winning” DNA that is needed in order to simply not find ways to not crumble in the face of adversity.

Of course, it’s a small sample size, and we’ll see how Auburn fares against SEC programs, but the Tigers are 1-0, and that’s really all fans can ask considering that it’s still the early stages of Golesh’s tenure.

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