The Auburn Tigers are building optimism coming into the 2026 college football season.
Since 2020, this team has gone through a bunch of adversity, from bad play to bad calls and close games that just haven’t gone their way. But ultimately, I think everyone would agree that coaching has been their biggest anchor. Alex Golesh is looking to flip that script starting in Year 1 with the Tigers.
If you take a look at Auburn’s roster from last year to now, you’ll notice that they lost a lot of talent to the portal. That being said, Alex Golesh has replaced much of that talent with his own guys, bringing players over from his previous school, USF.
One of the most notable transfers from USF to Auburn is the freak-of-nature quarterback, Byrum Brown. Another notable addition to Auburn’s roster this season is Chaz Nimrod, a transfer from USF. As for the players Auburn is retaining, they have All-SEC linebacker Xavier Atkins and a stud in the backfield in Jeremiah Cobb.
But in terms of Auburn’s biggest concern heading into the 2026 season, it has to be the secondary.
The secondary in the SEC is extremely competitive and vitally important against teams with four- and five-star wide receivers. The secondary was also one of Auburn’s biggest areas of loss in recruiting and the transfer portal.
Even last season, with talent in the secondary, Auburn still ranked in the bottom half of the country when it came to defensive passing metrics and opponents’ completion percentage.
Now, there are still a lot of questions about how well the USF guys can perform in the secondary for Auburn, but it definitely raises some eyebrows when you look at it from this standpoint.
