Why Auburn’s Alex Golesh and Joel Gordon Blame Themselves for Byrum Brown Interceptions

Byrum Brown has been hailed as the savior of the Auburn Tigers by many ever since he committed to his former coach this offseason, but after his first matchup in the orange and blue, fans are already concerned about the Tigers’ future with him in the saddle.

Much of this concern stems from the three interceptions Brown threw throughout the game, a highly uncharacteristic issue for the senior, who threw just seven interceptions throughout the entirety of his 2025 season with USF. However, on Monday, Alex Golesh and offensive coordinator Joel Gordon shed some light on why Brown may not be solely to blame.

“I would tell you this,” Golesh said. “One was a tip, one was a ball we tried to push down the field on first down, kind of tried to create an explosive... I think sometimes we try to kind of make things happen a little bit, and it's just how it shook out. Byrum owned every bit of it. I owned every bit of it.”

Gordon, who called plays for Brown when he was at USF and now calls plays for the Tigers, had a similar evaluation; simply, the Tigers were trying to be just a little too aggressive in their playcalling.

“The first one we were obviously trying to take a shot,” Gordon said. “I take responsibility... The one in the red zone right before halftime, we were trying to do too much... All of them are correctable without a doubt.”

So, though the interceptions came off the arm of Brown and will be attributed to him, Brown’s coaching staff believes these interceptions were more a result of getting too aggressive with playcalling and forcing throws into places they shouldn’t be.

This may actually be good news for Tiger fans, provided these playcalling issues do not persist, as it seems like there was just one interception thrown in that game that has responsibility put on Brown, and a one-interception game would be quite a bit more in character than a three-interception one.

So, despite what the stat sheet may tell you, Byrum Brown may not, in fact, have suddenly developed the Curse of Payton Thorne once he donned the orange and blue, and things should improve over the course of the next few games as Gordon and the rest of the offensive coordination settles in.

Next week’s matchup against Southern Miss should prove to be a valuable tune-up to get these concepts figured out, but time is running low for the Tigers before they’ll take on their first SEC matchup of the year, which is scheduled for the following Saturday.

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