Alex Golesh talks with the media at SEC Media Days 2026 (MAIN MEDIA ROOM)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Alex Golesh** (0:42)
All right. Thank you, Commissioner Sankey. Appreciate the introduction.
I am humbled and grateful to have been named the head football coach at Auburn University seven months ago, and it has been an incredible journey up until this point. I'm thankful to be back in Tampa. We spent just over three years here and met some incredible people here, some dear friends. Still, this community was incredible to my family, and I am really, really thankful for my time here, the way we got treated and the commitment that was made to us here in Tampa. I'm thankful to Dr. Roberts and our administration and them welcoming us to Auburn, what they've done for us through these first seven months and given us the ability to go hire an elite staff, given us the ability to go build the way we need to. Thankful to John Cohen for bringing me to Auburn, our Board of Trustees that continues to pour into our program. Beyond thankful to the Auburn family for welcoming us, welcoming my family, and even as late as last night, spending time here in Tampa with a bunch of alums and people that care deeply about Auburn here down in Florida and all over this state, that was a neat event. And thankful to the donors across the country that I've had a chance to go meet from the time I got there, spent a bunch of time in May.
Man, the love for Auburn around the country is incredible and thankful to their support, their continued investment in our program. Thankful to our staff.
John gave us the ability to go hire the most incredible staff that I've ever been a part of. Every time I walk out of our staff meetings, I'm just wowed by the professionals that are in there, the men and women that we were able to bring into this program to help us build Auburn back to where it belongs. I'm thankful to their families and the close to 100 families that chose to move to Auburn and join us in building this new era of Auburn Football. Grateful to the wives, the kids, and how many people picked their lives up and came with us that believe in our vision, believed in myself, and believed in what we're doing. More than anything else, I'm thankful to our players. The almost 70 that chose to stay and then the 40 that came in. I'm thankful for what they've done. Change is hard, change is incredibly hard in this day and age. And these guys have embraced the change. And when you come in and things are different, things are not what they're used to. The expectation standards are different than maybe things that people want.
The ability to buy in and continuously fight for what needs to be done, I'm beyond grateful to our kids in our program. We are two weeks away from camp, actually today, report two weeks from today. And we are, we're going to go into getting ready for week one in the Aflac kickoff game against Baylor. Grateful to be a part of that in Atlanta, grateful to get in front of our fans in Atlanta. We've got an incredible alumni base, it's going to be an incredible Auburn crowd. Thankful for Aflac for having us in the game. You combine that with nine SEC games and we feel like we're set up to have one of the best schedules in the country and an incredibly tough slate to get through for the year that we're beyond excited about. This two weeks from camp, we've had a six month buildup. Spent a month assembling a roster, retaining a roster, and we've had a six month buildup to get to this point. I get giddy thinking about starting football. It's the three weeks of the year where the doors are shut, you're with your players, with your staff, and you get to play ball. And that's the part I'm most excited about. You talk about a six month buildup, we went through an incredibly hard winter. We made it hard intentionally. We pushed as hard as you can to the limit to get ourselves ready for spring. We went through a long, long, long, hard spring. Talked to our players and they would tell you it was about as hard as anything they've gone through as it needed to be. And it was hard in a lot of ways. It was, it was the start of building of an identity. And it was the start of building and changing a culture that's standard based where everything we do is an elite level. And then we went into the summer and the summer was all about, yes, getting physically and mentally stronger, bigger, faster. But as much as anything else is the ability for us to connect as a team. And as you put together 115 guys that haven't been together and a brand new staff, the ability to connect and work through things and get to know each other is the difference of how the season ends up playing out. Can these guys communicate? Can these guys truly learn to grow and love each other and truly form a brotherhood? We got two weeks left to get into camp and be able to get after it. The biggest question I've gotten as I've gone through this journey the last seven months is, man, what's a successful year one look like and how do you gauge it and what are your goals? And I don't really have any goals other than laying a foundation for what Auburn Football is going to be for years to come. And that starts with building an identity. And this word identity is the only thing we've talked about as a program. And what does that look like for us? What is the identity of our program? Who are we when people sit down and watch us play on Saturdays? And the identities is one thing for me to talk about. It's one thing for me to preach. It's one thing for me to hold a standard in every aspect of our program. And it's another for our kids to embrace it and live it. And the first piece of this identity that we've hammered home is the ability to be physically and mentally tough.