The 2026 Auburn football Tigers opened their home season with a big win over Southern Miss. Head coach Alex Golesh summed up the game for everyone who watched in this quote:
“I don’t care what the score is, I don’t. That’s what I just told these guys. A win is a win and winning college football games is hard, but if the standard is that and that’s what it looks like, we’re going to have a really, really long season."
I mean that pretty much says it all. The Tigers won big but committed a lot of penalties and made a lot of mistakes. They might be able to clean some of that up and "raise the standard" but I still think it is going to be a really, really long season...
Starting in 1983 with Pat Dye Auburn became one of the six modern powers in the SEC. In fact since Ole Miss repeated as SEC Champions in 1963, the only team outside the "Big Six" to even get a share of an SEC championship is Kentucky who tied with Georgia in 1976. That means in the last 50 YEARS only Auburn, Bama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, and Tennessee have won SEC championships. Each of those teams have also won national championships in that time as well. Auburn won SEC championships in 1983, 1987, 1988, 1989, 2004, and 2013. Since the Tigers last appearance in the SEC Championship game in 2017 after defeating both #1 Georgia and #1 Bama at the end of that season the foundation has eroded due to horrible leadership and numerous bad decisions.
Auburn does not appear to be a part of that elite group of teams anymore regardless of the additions of Texas and Oklahoma. Auburn appears simply irrelevant in the SEC discussion anymore. The once mighty Tigers look a lot more like the Bulldogs at Mississippi State than the ones in Athens, Georgia. Actually that is not true, it is worse, right now I would take State over Auburn. So while I tried to "enjoy" a sloppy mistake-filled win over a bad Southern Miss team, all I see is how far Auburn has fallen. It is hard to transition to just hoping for a winning season and being completely irrelevant in the SEC. It has now been almost a decade of irrelevance, other than the Iron Bowl win in 2019 Auburn has not won a big game since the end of the 2017 season...
I guess I could try to "analyze" this game... Quarterback Byrum Brown had a good game with over 300 yards running and passing plus three touchdowns, two passing and one receiving (!!!). It was the type of one man show we have not seen since Cam Newton roamed the plains. Running back Omar Mabson put up over 100 yards, mostly in garbage time but still a big moment for him. Finally the defense dominated the Golden Eagles holding them to a little over 200 yards total offense and causing two turnovers. I mean I am down but I still agree with Coach Golesh that "A win is a win and winning college football games is hard." You can never take winning for granted but again I also agree with the second part of what he said: "but if the standard is that and that’s what it looks like, we’re going to have a really, really long season." He said it, not me.
Unfortunately again I think it is going to be a really, really long season. It is not because the players are not trying to meet that "standard". It seems like Auburn has some really good guys on this team that are again working their butts off. Unfortunately Auburn just does not look like the other top teams in the SEC in my opinion. In fact it does not look very close. It just does not seem Auburn has near enough of that elite talent needed to compete for SEC championships. I hope I am wrong. We will all find out a lot this weekend as in many ways Auburn will play its biggest game of the season in its first SEC game on Saturday hosting Florida. I believe this will also be a first in Auburn history opening the SEC season with the Florida Gators.
This game is big for so many other reasons... Florida, a perennial SEC power like Auburn, has been down like Auburn for awhile as well. They have gone through several head coaches as well over the last decade and are starting fresh this year like Auburn. In fact, Florida ended up with Jon Sumrall who was LONG rumored to be headed to Auburn last season. I have gone over my thoughts on what happened there in my last post of last season on the Bama game and Golesh's hiring last season so I will not go over it again here. I will say though I still think based on their history that despite Golesh being a good hire Sumrall was the top choice. His three conference championships, two at Troy and one at Tulane plus a playoff berth are the evidence. He is not a one year wonder to do that at two different schools in highly competitive conferences.
We will see this weekend but a cursory look at the rosters and the first two games suggest that Sumrall was able to retain and raise the talent level at Florida over Auburn who had the better roster last year. Again I have just been so disappointed with several aspects of the Auburn offense so far this season especially up front. We will know a lot more about both teams and both coaches around 10pm this coming Saturday night.
“I don’t care what the score is, I don’t. That’s what I just told these guys. A win is a win and winning college football games is hard, but if the standard is that and that’s what it looks like, we’re going to have a really, really long season."
I mean that pretty much says it all. The Tigers won big but committed a lot of penalties and made a lot of mistakes. They might be able to clean some of that up and "raise the standard" but I still think it is going to be a really, really long season...
Starting in 1983 with Pat Dye Auburn became one of the six modern powers in the SEC. In fact since Ole Miss repeated as SEC Champions in 1963, the only team outside the "Big Six" to even get a share of an SEC championship is Kentucky who tied with Georgia in 1976. That means in the last 50 YEARS only Auburn, Bama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, and Tennessee have won SEC championships. Each of those teams have also won national championships in that time as well. Auburn won SEC championships in 1983, 1987, 1988, 1989, 2004, and 2013. Since the Tigers last appearance in the SEC Championship game in 2017 after defeating both #1 Georgia and #1 Bama at the end of that season the foundation has eroded due to horrible leadership and numerous bad decisions.
Auburn does not appear to be a part of that elite group of teams anymore regardless of the additions of Texas and Oklahoma. Auburn appears simply irrelevant in the SEC discussion anymore. The once mighty Tigers look a lot more like the Bulldogs at Mississippi State than the ones in Athens, Georgia. Actually that is not true, it is worse, right now I would take State over Auburn. So while I tried to "enjoy" a sloppy mistake-filled win over a bad Southern Miss team, all I see is how far Auburn has fallen. It is hard to transition to just hoping for a winning season and being completely irrelevant in the SEC. It has now been almost a decade of irrelevance, other than the Iron Bowl win in 2019 Auburn has not won a big game since the end of the 2017 season...
I guess I could try to "analyze" this game... Quarterback Byrum Brown had a good game with over 300 yards running and passing plus three touchdowns, two passing and one receiving (!!!). It was the type of one man show we have not seen since Cam Newton roamed the plains. Running back Omar Mabson put up over 100 yards, mostly in garbage time but still a big moment for him. Finally the defense dominated the Golden Eagles holding them to a little over 200 yards total offense and causing two turnovers. I mean I am down but I still agree with Coach Golesh that "A win is a win and winning college football games is hard." You can never take winning for granted but again I also agree with the second part of what he said: "but if the standard is that and that’s what it looks like, we’re going to have a really, really long season." He said it, not me.
Unfortunately again I think it is going to be a really, really long season. It is not because the players are not trying to meet that "standard". It seems like Auburn has some really good guys on this team that are again working their butts off. Unfortunately Auburn just does not look like the other top teams in the SEC in my opinion. In fact it does not look very close. It just does not seem Auburn has near enough of that elite talent needed to compete for SEC championships. I hope I am wrong. We will all find out a lot this weekend as in many ways Auburn will play its biggest game of the season in its first SEC game on Saturday hosting Florida. I believe this will also be a first in Auburn history opening the SEC season with the Florida Gators.
This game is big for so many other reasons... Florida, a perennial SEC power like Auburn, has been down like Auburn for awhile as well. They have gone through several head coaches as well over the last decade and are starting fresh this year like Auburn. In fact, Florida ended up with Jon Sumrall who was LONG rumored to be headed to Auburn last season. I have gone over my thoughts on what happened there in my last post of last season on the Bama game and Golesh's hiring last season so I will not go over it again here. I will say though I still think based on their history that despite Golesh being a good hire Sumrall was the top choice. His three conference championships, two at Troy and one at Tulane plus a playoff berth are the evidence. He is not a one year wonder to do that at two different schools in highly competitive conferences.
We will see this weekend but a cursory look at the rosters and the first two games suggest that Sumrall was able to retain and raise the talent level at Florida over Auburn who had the better roster last year. Again I have just been so disappointed with several aspects of the Auburn offense so far this season especially up front. We will know a lot more about both teams and both coaches around 10pm this coming Saturday night.
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