TIGER TALK REVIEW: It’s Week Zero!

WRITER’S NOTE: “Tiger Talk” is the weekly radio show that features football coach Alex Golesh during football season. Back when Tommy Tuberville was the Tigers’ head coach, I would do tongue-in-cheek reviews of these shows because the shows were funny and questions from the phone (or in person) made it entertaining. It’s generally less entertaining now, but the show nonetheless gives Golesh — a remarkably forthcoming guy — a platform to pass along some different kinds of insights. So this is a general review of Golesh’s run on Tiger Talk this week. ps: Andy Burcham and Brad Law are the show’s hosts. Many years ago, I beefed with Brad and referred to him as “Not Andy” in these synopses. We got that all squared away. When that happened, I told Brad that I’d start referring to him as “Brad” in this space. He said he preferred “Not Andy.” So that’s what I call him. THE FIRST SEGMENT ANDY asks if it’s good to get away from football. “It’s been a fun camp and it was cool to turn the page and get working on somebody else. In Year One, you just want to get to Game One. I’m excited to just see it.” NOT ANDY asks if AG is more intense now. “Are you saying I wasn’t intense before?” (GUFFAWS ALL AROUND) AG says he was filibustering with the Monday press conference because he just wants to get back into the film room. “My mind is in a lot of different places.” ANDY asks about the Fall Camp At The Hotel thing. Why was that important? “The camp piece very much is an NFL model. We’re trying to get there guys (to the NFL). So many things are not like the NFL in our game. One thing that is … they’re more spread out now. In that guys, guys actually have families and they’re grown-ups. We talk so much about process. What does elite, high-level process day to say look like? We talk about it, we teach it, we talk about it, we teach it. Here’s a two-week period where we can pull them out of their normal day-to-day and teach them, first hand, what that looks like.” “At the end of the day, it reconnects them and re-centers them.” “They thought it was really cool. It brought us closer together.” Photo by Auburn Athletics THE SECOND SEGMENT HERB is in the house. He wants to know how many players here are totally new to Auburn. “We’ve got right around 40 that transferred in and about 14 that were freshmen. So right over 50 that are now to Auburn. We’ve got close to 70 that were here. That seem to really, really love it.” “Everybody that we get on campus … Bruce Pearl told me this — that we’ve got to get kids on campus. This town gives off a very welcoming vibe.” NOT ANDY thinks AG does some of the things that Bruce did when he started 10+ year ago. Is that true, big dog? “I actually enjoy people. So far, people have enjoyed me, I think, because we’ve been really successful … we haven’t played a game yet. We’ll see how this journey continues. You are a part of the community. The football program is part of the community. You drive around this community and it’s all Auburn flags. (His kids) are my life. For me to be able to let them enjoy living life like a normal person … we’ve chosen to live like normal people.” “The first question everybody asks you is: Do you love Auburn? Has Auburn been good to you? That is really, really unique. Auburn people want you to love Auburn as much as they do. That’s different. That is unique.” TEDDY/TEDDYE is in the house. She wants to know about AG’s family. “They’ve been in a really good spot. My little guy Bear is in sixth grade. He played in his first tackle football game last night. I haven’t had time to watch the film yet, but we’ll evaluate it.” (GUFFAWS ALL AROUND) “He’s having a blast. My daughter is cheering. They got lightning’d out right before halftime. For my wife, being back in the South is really important to her.” Photo by Jake Crandall/IMAGN THE THIRD SEGMENT BUSTER is in the house. He says he’s ready to be at the game in Atlanta, likes that Auburn has an experienced QB. He wants to talk about the 5-for-5 stuff and the NFL guys trying to come back to NCAA. What does AG think? “Which part. Was there a question?” (GUFFAWS ALL AROUND) “The 5-for-5 deal is only going to help, I think, how you’re able to manage the younger guys in your program. The ability to let guys that are young play in whatever role it is … it allows you to help those guys develop. Playing in actual games is the (best) way to actually develop. It allows you to play more guys.” “We’ve kinda take it day-by-day as it’s come up. We’re working through … does it actually make sense to potentially add somebody or not. If you’re ever going to add somebody this late … man, it better be somebody who’s familiar with your program and your kids. For us, that would be really, really hard to do.” NOT ANDY asks about players buying in and how players improve based on what coaches want. “In this modern-day college football, we’ve … had to change as coaches. The one thing that hasn’t changed that young people crave relationships, they crave accountability, young people crave to be told the truth … and they crave to be loved. That hasn’t changed and I don’t know that it will. That’s why it’s not the NFL.” “We’ve hired people who care about young people, who are in it for the right reasons.” “We haven’t faced adversity in the sense of (facing) another team. That will be the true test of where we are. There is a level of trust that is high right now. What will test it are the things that come during the next 14 weeks.” ANDY wants to know about coaches asking players to play multiple positions on defense. “We’ve tried to recruit a certain type of athlete defensively. Length and speed are at a premium. When you recruit guys that have length and can run, then you can do so many different things … in terms of packages, in terms of fronts, in terms of illusions of certain things and then running something else.” “Guys know the more they can do, the better chance they’ve got to play and the better change they’ve got to stay on the field for situational football.” ANDY asks what AG will be doing after he leaves this show. “We take an hour and 15 minutes to call recruits, we call it ‘crossover calls.’ Tonight is the defense for me. We’ll get guys on the phone defensively and catch up with our top 25 guys. Offense is doing the same thing, passing the phone around catching up because it was the Week One in the state of Alabama and Georgia last week. Then we’ll get right back to game planning.”