Golesh on Portal Tampering: ‘The Football Gods Will Find You at Some Point’

January 30, 2026 Michael Brauner AU RECRUITING, Auburn, Auburn, Featured News
GAINESVILLE, FL - SEPTEMBER 06: South Florida Bulls head coach Alex Golesh is all smiles after a college football game between the South Florida Bulls and Florida Gators on September 6th, 2025 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL. (Photo by Chris Leduc/Icon Sportswire)

Auburn head coach Alex Golesh is going through his first offseason on The Plains and he has some choice words to say about it.

Now, Golesh — and any head coach just starting out at the highest level — faces additional challenges unique to today’s day and age.

Just about every coach in America is dealing with “tampering,” meaning opposing coaches calling players on their roster to entice them to enter the portal with huge offers.

While technically illegal, the NCAA has no ability to enforce rules anymore in this Wild West landscape, and coaches do anything to gain an advantage.

During Senior Bowl week in Mobile, Golesh talked about the impact of tampering and how he avoids getting worked up over other coaches breaking the rules.

“It’s been going on for a really long time, the portal era has only amplified it,” Golesh began. “There eventually needs to be guardrails on this thing, I think we all want to know the rules you can operate in, the truth is right now, there aren’t any. So you operate ethically with what you feel like is right.”

“Is it right to call a kid that’s on somebody else’s roster to go get him? It’s not. I think, in a lot of ways, what goes around comes around. In the fall you gotta go line up and play. I’m a strong believer in the football gods will find you at some point and generally they’ll find you at the end of a game or they’ll find you on fourth and one and I think you gotta do things the right way, and the right way is doing right by the young people.”

He added how real the pressure to win is and that he won’t judge other coaches for how they do it, but it seems clear that Golesh is going to run his program his way.

Needless to say, Auburn has a special coach at the helm in Golesh, and he is going to try to get the Tigers back to prominence while doing things his own way.