College Sports Wire grades Auburn football's hire of Alex Golesh

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Auburn football struck gold when it hired Alex Golesh to become its next head coach. Golesh has a proven track record of producing video game-like numbers on offense and has led four teams to top 20 rankings in total offense over the last five years.

His offensive success is one of the key reasons why College Sports Wire gives Auburn's hire of Golesh a B+. Although Auburn did not land the presumed favorite, former Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall, Tyler Nettuno of College Sports Wire feels that Auburn's offense will take a giant step forward under Golesh's leadership.

Auburn missed out on its top target — Tulane's Jon Sumrall — but came away with a solid consolation prize in Golesh. He inherited a South Florida program that was an absolute mess, and he holds a 23-15 record with three winning seasons in Tampa.

Still, there is projection involved. The Bulls went just 7-6 in each of Golesh's first two seasons, and they squandered a playoff opportunity this season as they finished 9-3. However, the former Tennessee offensive coordinator under Josh Heupel will surely improve an Auburn offense that struggled under Hugh Freeze.

During his introductory press conference, Golesh indicated that his offense is based on the run game, which allows the rest of the offense to open up and exploit opposing defenses.

“I would tell you that the foundation of it is that everything starts with the run. We find ways to run the football. We find ways to create matchups in the run game. Off of the run game sets up everything downfield in the pass game. We use the entire width of the field. We’ll condense it. We’ll expand it, and we use tempo to our advantage. Put defenses in a disadvantage. Try to simplify what defenses can do, and we try to create one-on-one matchups with as much space as you imagine we can. That’s the offense.”

Several notable grades Nettuno handed out include LSU's hiring of Lane Kiffin (A+), Virginia Tech's hiring of James Franklin (A), and Arkansas' hiring of Ryan Silverfield (C-).

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This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Auburn football's hire of Alex Golesh graded by College Sports Wire

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