David Pollack offers high praise for Alex Golesh hire at Auburn

The coaching search is over for the Auburn Tigers, and they have their next head coach. Alex Golesh is making the move from USF to be an SEC head coach.

As with any major hire, there is going to be a lot of scrutiny on Alex Golesh as he enters this next role. But there are also plenty of people who believe that it’s a good hire. Included in that group is David Pollack, who offered some high praise for the hire on See Ball, Get Ball.

“Alex Golesh goes to Auburn,” David Pollack said. “Talked to a coach today, a college football coach, that has a good pulse of everything going on. They said they thought Golesh was one of the smartest coaches in all of college football. Really had an understanding and an awesome plan when he went to USF how to retain coaches.”

Alex Golesh was a longtime position coach, primarily working as a tight ends coach. That’s before he got his first chance to be an offensive coordinator under Josh Heupel. That was first at UCF and later at Tennessee. In the process, he did earn experience in the SEC.

For the last three seasons, Golesh has earned head coaching experience at USF. There, he inherited a team that had gone four years without a bowl game and were 4-29 under the previous coaching staff over three seasons. So, getting the Bulls bowl eligible in all three seasons he spent there was remarkable. He has a 23-15 record as a head coach overall there.

“If you want a glimpse of Alex Golesh, actually, and who he is personally,” Pollack said. “We had him on the pod a couple of months ago. Probably a month and a half ago, from USF. Talked about his background growing up, Tennessee. Who influenced him as a coach. How he was a defensive coach and became an offensive coach. His time at Tennessee. He’s got SEC experience, which I think is a really good thing.”

At Auburn, Golesh is going to be tasked with another rebuild. The Tigers have not won more than six games since 2019 and 2017 was their last season with double-digit wins.

Alex Golesh addresses plans for Auburn defensive staff, plans for DJ Durkin

Alex Golesh is considered one of the best upcoming offensive minds. That left some questions about his plan for the defensive side of the ball, where there have also been rumors that DJ Durkin could be retained. Now, Golesh has addressed his plans for that staff.

“We’ve got a plan,” Golesh said. “We’re working through steps to execute the plan. My hope is that in the next—call it—24 or 48 hours, that gets finalized and we have some clarity with which direction we’re going.”