Alex Golesh feeling 'guarded' after Auburn football's Georgia upset

AUBURN — For those inclined to keep their inboxes free of unread messages, avert your eyes from Alex Golesh's phone screen. The first-year Auburn football head coach still has more than 500 unread texts on his phone, "and God knows how many on the other," since the Tigers toppling of then-No. 1 Georgia,

Flash back a month ago to Auburn's SEC-opening loss to Florida. Golesh's inbox was much dryer.

"I only had, like, three (texts)," he said Monday, Oct. 19. "Two of them said I suck, and one of them is my wife that said, 'Man, like maybe you don't suck as bad as everybody says, but you suck."

In the eyes of the man helming the program, that means 497 more people are saying how great Auburn is because of its walk-off win against the Bulldogs, making for a "highly guarded" version of himself as the Tigers prepare to host No. 17 LSU on Saturday, Oct. 24 (11 a.m., ABC).

"Good win, bad loss; it has to be the same," Golesh said. "If I've learned anything from this conference, you are just good enough to get your (expletive) beat every Saturday if it ain't right."

It would be misguided to view the upcoming bout as a trap game for Auburn, which opened as 6.5-point underdog. Instead, what Golesh expressed reflected his insistence of process. It reads like trite coach-speak, but it comes at a moment that had not happened for Auburn in 30 years, on the heels beating the No. 1 team in the nation on its home field.

The Georgia victory was historic in multiple manners, but within that history arrived the best proof of concept an Auburn coach has had since Gus Malzahn was in the role. Golesh said the attention of Auburn's locker room has been there post-upset. Only it is no different to him than it has been all season, meaning now comes a new sort of hard part.

It may be one thing to go from bad to good, but how does a program go from good to great? Or maintain greatness? Or in Auburn's case, simply seize the momentum of a significant win and turn it into more? Golesh is going to boil it down to process — "fundamentals, technique, process," he said.

That started with a two-and-a-half hour staff meeting Sunday, and Golesh gave a rundown of the highlights.

"Here's fundamentally where we suck, here's our pad level, here's our missed leverages, here's our hat placement, here's our hand placement, here's our run track that isn't going exactly where it's got to be," he said. "Like, if we're playing press like this, but the next play we're playing press like this, what are we teaching?"

Golesh's big-picture quest is to win at Auburn. He described getting there as a re-education, of striving for results while not making them the end goal.

So, following Auburn's biggest win in years, are the Tigers as good as 500 people say they are or as bad as three people say?

"Somewhere in the middle is probably the truth," Golesh said. "I don't suck, but probably not a genius either, like someone in the middle. I can humble myself. Can we all humble ourselves on that?"