Is The National Media Sleeping on the Auburn Tigers?

With the college football season officially upon us, sports media has been releasing their predictions for the upcoming 2026 season. Preseason watchlists, record projections, and player predictions are flooding in yet despite all of the different outlets, there seems to be one consensus throughout all.

The Auburn Tigers may not be getting the credit they deserve.

Across every major media outlet, the Tigers are consistently ranked as one of the more average teams out of all 138 teams at the FBS level. Obviously, they are operating under a new regime after bringing in head coach Alex Golesh to take over the program, but that doesn’t justify the disrespect they are receiving across the country.

The first AP Poll of the 2026 season saw the Tigers unranked. After a 5-7 season and a new coaching staff, it is completely reasonable. However, the Tigers found themselves at 43rd in the country, receiving fewer votes for the top 25 than Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and James Madison. All three programs have struggled over the last few seasons and also have new head coaches at the helm.

Josh Pate is one of the biggest personalities in college football. He predicts that the Tigers will go 6-6 this year and it will be a “massive improvement” even though he was very high on the Golesh hire and bringing in quarterback Byrum Brown. Pate then ranked Brown as the ninth-best passer in the conference.

In the SEC’s own football power rankings, they said that Auburn will finish as the 12th team in the conference behind teams like Missouri and South Carolina. Bill Connelly at ESPN predicted the Tigers to do the same thing. CBS experts had them finishing as low as 13 and as high as 9.

The media’s negative view towards the Tigers this season trickles down to the quarterback as well. Despite having one of the best statistical seasons from the position last year, Brown is constantly ranked in the middle of the pack when it comes to quarterbacks in the conference. He is often listed behind Alabama’s Keelon Russell and even Vanderbilt’s Jared Curtis when neither of them have had serious or any time in college football.

The question then arises, why is Auburn being treated this way by the media?

The explanations range from the offense and Brown’s play not being able to transfer from the American Athletic Conference to the SEC to the stigma that has surrounded Auburn football since 2020, that they won’t win close games and are stuck in mediocrity or even below that.

As the offensive coordinator at Tennessee in 2021 and 2022, Golesh helped produce the seventh-best and the best offense in the country based on points per game. He has experience in play-calling against SEC defenses, so it is not the crazy jump it is currently painted out to be.

The media has also argued that Brown’s play style will not translate to the SEC. Brown has played three SEC opponents in the last three seasons and did not have to change his play style. If a player is talented enough, they will succeed no matter the level. Trinidad Chambliss at Ole Miss was at Ferris State in Division II before joining the Rebels and nearly leading them to a national championship appearance.

Regarding the other argument, saying a program will be the same regardless of the head coach is no longer a valid argument. Nationally, Auburn is predicted to finish 0.500, with many of the losses coming in close games as they have under Bryan Harsin and Hugh Freeze. A strong head coach and staff can change that. It has been seen across the sport’s landscape. It’s no guarantee that they will win every 50/50 game, but saying they will lose a game because they are “Auburn” is no longer the case.

Golesh seems to bring a different mindset to the Plains and wants to build an identity that the program has struggled to cement since its last winning season in 2020.

Auburn will look to prove the national media wrong by starting strong against the Baylor Bears in the 2026 Aflac Kickoff Game in Atlanta this Saturday. A dominant win against the Big 12 opponent may be all the Tigers need to show off their potential in 2026 and wake up the media to what Golesh is building on the Plains.

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