Alex Golesh: Auburn is 'one of the very few places' able to win a national championship

New Auburn Tigers head coach Alex Golesh came to the Plains via Tampa and the USF Bulls. There, he had found success at the Group of Five level, but now he’s ready for a new test. That’s competing for national championships.

Golesh appeared on SportsCenter on Wednesday, amid National Signing Day. There, he addressed his move from USF and the difficult decision it was. At the same time, he noted that the move is because of what Auburn offers, which includes winning a national championship.

“It’s surreal,” Alex Golesh said. “You feel like you’re in a little bit of a movie. But this is something you sit down for and you plan ahead of time. We literally had every single hour planned out for the first six months. The plan is the plan. You obviously deviate a little bit as you go. You prioritize more than anything else. In my program and my personality, you prioritize the players that you’re coaching.”

This is a challenge every coach moving up has to deal with. The reality is you’re walking away from players. Those are often players who coaches have become close with and, in that respect, they’ve become like family.

“It is surreal in a lot of ways,” Golesh said. “There’s so many young guys that I said bye to on Sunday morning that I’ve been a part of their life. They’ve been a part of our life, man. If done correctly, this relationship really does last a lifetime. A lot of those guys, most of those guys, are family. Some of those guys, you’ve spent nights with in hospitals. You’ve been through deaths in families, and it’s hard. It’s hard to say goodbye. It’s hard to get on a plane and say, ‘Everything we’ve built here for three years, you’re walking away from.’ That’s a special place. That’s a special group of young guys. It’s an incredible job that we walked away from that I know we left way, way, way better than what we walked into.”

Alex Golesh did inherit a mess at USF. The program was at a low point, having gone 4-29 during the Jeff Scott era. That turnaround came quickly, starting with making a bowl every season he was there, over the course of three years. Now, he’s ready for a new test, though. That’s bringing a national championship to Auburn.

“The opportunity to come into a place like Auburn and specifically to get here On the Plains. I mean, this is one of the premier jobs in the entire country. For me, I’ve dreamed of an opportunity like this. When this opportunity came about, you sprint with this. It’s life changing, not in the sense that the level that it’s at or what it really is. It’s life changing because this is one of the very few places in the country that you can come and win a national title at. So, you run to it and it’s surreal in every way,” Golesh said. “But I’ve said it to the guys I’m really, really close with. I’m like, ‘Man, I feel like I’m in a movie.'”

Auburn last won a national championship in 2010 and last won the SEC in 2013. Getting back to that standard isn’t going to be easy, but it’s that challenge that drew Golesh to Auburn.