SEC Media Days: Game-by-Game Schedule Predictions with Blaine Crain (7-5 Floor or 9-3 Potential?)

**Mike Giddens** (0:30)
We're on Day 3, but we heard from Alex Golesh yesterday. This is you and I's first time sitting down to talk about this. He hit the podium, and he tried to cut everybody off at the pass by saying, look, before you ask me what a successful Year 1 looks like, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you. And then someone asked him what a successful Year 1 looks like. Not surprising. But without making predictions on what the season would look like, he did say a couple things that I'm gonna talk to you about. He said, I already have one of the best quarterbacks in the country.
Very slickly, I felt like nobody heard it, but he said, we're talented enough to win every game on our roster right now. And he thinks that his defense is gonna be really, really, really good again.
When I've talked to so many of our fellow media members here, and there seems to be a seven and five flavor to where people see Auburn finishing. Where are you at, man, after you've heard from Alex Golesh?

**Blaine Crain** (1:27)
I'm a little higher than seven and five, and a couple of reasons why. One, it feels different with Golesh. It really does.

**Mike Giddens** (1:37)
What feels different?

**Blaine Crain** (1:38)
The vibes, the confidence.
He feels like he's one of those guys that does the same thing every day, which matters to me. A ritual and a natural way you go about things being a head coach matters.
And I think he believes in what he's got. There's a reason all these guys came with him. And Byrum Brown, and I've said this kind of all week, you hear all the quarterbacks, Arch Manning, Trinidad, Sam Leavitt, Marcel Reed, somewhat proven guys. If you, Byrum Brown is the only guy I knew who threw for, what, what, 3,000, ran for 1,000 last year. And you bring them, and we talked about this before the show even started, it's not a talent problem at Auburn. It's never been a talent problem. Like, there are NFL players scattered across that roster. It's been a consistency problem. It's been a finishing problem. And that starts with, what, the staff. And I think Alex Golesh and what he has now and the system he has, that he's basically created from the ashes with a little bit of help from Hype. I can understand that. But he believes in it. And it's just, it's, it's, I haven't had this feeling for Auburn in a long time.

**Mike Giddens** (2:46)
Let me ask you this, because I know that you and Jake have a pretty good relationship with Hugh. What caused the consistency problems under Hugh? And how does Alex Golesh avoid those same issues?

**Blaine Crain** (2:56)
Well, I would say Jake has a lot better relationship than I had with Hugh. Hugh was a really hit or miss guy. For me, I know what he did at Ole Miss, but it's just, Hugh, it didn't feel like Hugh was just there for football. Like, it was always something else going on. Him on a golf course, this, this behind the scenes, this is going wrong.
And it really didn't feel like the players believed in it that much. And that's the first thing you have to get when you're a head coach, is belief. You get the locker room, right, then the results you want will come, especially in what? Finishing football games. If those guys believe in what you're saying, believe in what you're about, they'll put it all on the line.

**Mike Giddens** (3:35)
So, but they committed to him. So they had to lose belief in him after they got there.

**Blaine Crain** (3:40)
Yeah, yeah, and it wasn't that hard, to be honest, when, one, you kept Peyton Thorn for a second year.
I'll never understand that. You bring in Jackson Arnold, who got benched by his fourth game at Oklahoma. If you get benched as a starter at Oklahoma, I probably don't want you to come play.

**Mike Giddens** (3:54)
So many people loved the move before he got it. I'll never understand it. I thought he was a prototypical, cute, freezing guy.

**Blaine Crain** (3:59)
Go watch the tape. Like, it's not hard. All the games, you can go watch them. Go watch the tape. Nothing about that. And Dave Aranda screwed a lot of Auburn fans because he sat in too high for four quarters, and Auburn could just turn around and hand the ball off, get 280 yards of rushing, and think that, wow, this team is really good. Never believed in Jackson Arnold. I never, I stopped believing in Hugh Freeze the second he re-signed Payton Thornton.