Why Auburn Might Be the Most Underrated Team in College Football
After a 10-3 loss to Kentucky at home on November 2, 2025, the Auburn Tigers fired head coach Hugh Freeze. This move came as no surprise because Freeze’s time in Auburn was a catastrophic disappointment. In his three seasons with Auburn, the team went 15-19 and never even won a bowl game. They didn’t have a single winning season during his tenure!
After the forgettable 2025 season, the Tigers brought in one of the brightest young head coaches in the sport to turn the program around: Alex Golesh of South Florida. With Golesh came a lot of transfers from his previous team, including quarterback Byrum Brown, who exploded last season and became one of the top dual-threat quarterbacks in the nation.
With the changes Auburn made this offseason, people are wondering if the Tigers have what it takes to transform the program and become a winning team again. I’ve even seen some rumors that the players are buying into Golesh’s vision for the team and that the Tigers could be a lot better than people expect this season.
As an Auburn fan myself, I’m accustomed to being depressed and disappointed on Saturdays in the fall. Because of this, I have become somewhat cynical. I almost want to refuse to consider that there is a better future ahead for my Tigers. The past is marred with tragic memories like a 21-point loss to New Mexico State in 2023 and six losses by seven points or less against SEC opponents in 2025. As Hugh Freeze loved to remind us, we were so close last year.
Despite my hardened heart, I can’t help but see a glimmer of light at the end of the dark, cold tunnel. My expectations are low to protect my heart. The walls are up so I don’t get hurt. Still, I present to you the case for why Auburn might be the most underrated team in college football.
The dog days are over...hopefully
When the preseason AP poll came out, Auburn was nowhere to be found in the top 25. Instead, the Tigers were in the “others receiving votes” section, slotted in around No. 44 among 50 teams that received consideration. I get it. Being ranked below UNLV, who can’t even decide who its starting quarterback is, and New Mexico hurts, though. I have to admit that.
Thankfully, ESPN’s projections of how good Auburn should be this year are quite positive. FPI has Auburn as the No. 22 team in the nation while SP+ has Auburn as the No. 26 team in the nation. You love to see it. I will be using this data to cope if this team is mediocre again.
A big reason why Auburn’s projections are positive is that it has a lot of talent on its roster. According to puntandrally.com, the Tigers have the 18th most talented roster in college football via the recruiting rankings for everyone on the roster. They have a pretty solid recruiting class coming in as Auburn’s 2026 class ranks No. 32 in the nation according to 247sports.com. Not bad considering the team lost one of the better recruiters in college football.
The Tigers are also returning 80% of their production from last season per puntandrally.com. This is the 6th best mark in the nation. You might think this doesn’t matter because Auburn went 5-7 last year, but the Tigers were actually a decent team on the field, sporting the 24th best FPI in the nation. They just couldn’t close out games. They were also being punished by God for the moral failings of Hugh Freeze. At least, that’s my assumption.
According to SP+, Auburn is projected to be very solid on defense. These projections have the team giving up just 17.3 points per game, the 19th-best mark in the nation. The Tigers have consistently been effective on this side of the ball, and that should continue this season. Keep your eyes on their junior linebacker Xavier Atkins. He flies all over the field and is an absolute demon as a pass rusher. He led Auburn in sacks last year, taking down the quarterback 10 times per PFF.
Auburn’s offensive projections aren’t nearly as good, with SP+ predicting the Tigers will rank 55th in points per game with a mark of 28.5. However, I am beyond excited to see what Auburn’s offense looks like this season.
It may take some time for Auburn’s offense to hit its stride as 10 of its 11 starters are 2026 transfers. That’s crazy, but it’s easy to imagine the Tigers’ offense exceeding expectations because they might have solved their quarterback issues with the addition of Byrum Brown.
Alex Golesh and Byrum Brown produced one of the best offenses in college football last season, as South Florida averaged 40.5 points per game, the 5th-best mark in the nation. Brown had one of the more impressive seasons we’ve seen from a dual-threat quarterback, as he threw for 3,158 yards and ran for 1,008 yards. He’s one of just 13 quarterbacks to ever throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 yards in a single season.
Although Brown transferred to a new school, he doesn’t have to learn how to function playing alongside new receivers. His receivers at South Florida simply joined him and Golesh, transferring to Auburn as well. This should make the transition to the SEC smoother, since the quarterback, receivers, and head coach are familiar with each other.
While Auburn has some serious upside if everything goes right, there are some question marks with this team. First off, how will Alex Golesh fare in the SEC? cfbcoachingmetrics.com has metrics that attempt to measure how good coaches are in terms of in-game coaching.
Of the 50 teams that received a vote in the preseason poll, 46 of them have a first-year head coach or an inexperienced coach that doesn’t have enough data to compare with the other coaches. Of these 46 remaining coaches, Golesh ranks 36th in terms of CFB Coaching Metrics’ in-game coaching data.
That doesn’t mean that Golesh is definitely a bad coach because coaching metrics are not perfect, and it can be hard to judge a Group of Five coach like Golesh who is entering just his fourth season as a head coach and is making the difficult transition to the SEC.
On top of this, Auburn’s offensive line needs to be much better than it has been in the past. In 2025, it was just average in the passing game and the run game, and Auburn is only bringing back 57% of its offensive line production from last season per puntandrally.com. This could be the X Factor in determining Auburn’s ceiling on offense this year.
Even if Auburn isn’t great this year, rumor has it that a strong culture is being established under Alex Golesh. It sounds like the players trust him and are buying into his vision for the program. This is why there is some light shining from the end of the tunnel. Perhaps the dog days are over. We’ll see where this new regime takes the Auburn Tigers.
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