Early in Tennessee football’s 2026 schedule, some familiar faces will return to town. For the SEC home opener, Alex Golesh’s Auburn squad heads to Neyland Stadium.
With fall camp around the corner, I spoke with Christian Clemente of Auburn247 to get the inside scoop on where the Tigers are at this summer.
Here’s what he said.
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Obviously, a lot of familiarity between these staffs. Maybe the answer is it’s a wash, but do you think that could play in the favor of either side?
There’s a ton of familiarity as you mentioned, which sets up for a really fun matchup. Even if there isn’t a ton of familiarity with players transferring over or whatnot, you can expect guys on both sides to be playing extra hard for their coaches. Auburn has Alex Golesh, Tim Banks, some other assistant coaches and personnel staffers that were up in Knoxville, and even Tennessee has some staffers who just left Auburn and work in the personnel department now. You’d probably lean towards a slight edge in favor of Auburn here given Banks’ familiarity with how Josh Heupel runs his offense, but I’d agree with your question and put it closer to a wash than anything else.
What’s the early buzz around how QB Byrum Brown has done this offseason? What are the expectations for him this year?
How he’s able to hold up during a full SEC season will be the question and taking hits from a different level of players, but there’s plenty of excitement around what Byrum Brown can do this year on the Plains. He’s lived up to the billing of being a true team leader and culture guy that helps Golesh establish what he wants early throughout the offseason. Brown had a bit of a rough A-Day, but it’s hard to put stock into a spring game especially when his legs are limited and given the fact he had a strong spring prior to that.
How has Alex Golesh filled the offense around Brown? What do you anticipate the strengths and weaknesses being?
It’s a lot of USF transfers and then a bit of a hodgepodge of an offensive line. That’s where we’ll start, as that’s the biggest question mark and likely the weakness on this side of the ball. Just three total players return from last year’s team, and they’re all second-year players who are likely in the two-deep but probably not starters. Cole Best is the only “lock” of a starter, as he was USF’s starting center, ranked pretty well in the transfer portal and is expected to maintain his role at Auburn. The continuity there with Brown and Golesh should help the unit. A combo of James Madison transfer Jo Simmons and Michigan State transfer Stanton Ramil are the likely tackles, but questions surround Ramil’s health with multiple injuries previously and very limited in spring. The guard spots are still completely up in the air, to be honest.
The biggest strength likely comes in the backfield, pairing Brown with a stable of running backs. Jeremiah Cobb nearly went for 1,000 yards last year in Hugh Freeze’s incompetent offense, then Auburn went out and added Bryson Washington from Baylor as one of the top transfer running backs. You also have Nykahi Davenport who started at USF last year and Tae Meadows who started at Troy last year. So, four different starting running backs along with second-year back Omar Mabson II, who the staff is very high on.
What does the defense look like? Strengths? Weaknesses?
While the offense looks a whole lot different, there’s a lot of familiarity on this side of the ball. DJ Durkin stayed as defensive coordinator and defensive line coach Vontrell King-Williams also was retained. That helps a lot with scheme and also helped with player retention in the offseason.
The question marks here are at cornerback with a whole new group there, but Auburn did a solid job piecing that room together via the portal and at defensive end/buck linebacker. Auburn will need Jared Smith to take a step up in Year 2, and Ole Miss transfer Da’Shawn Womack needs to live up to his billing to help try and replace Keldric Faulk and Keyron Crawford who are off in the NFL.
The biggest strength without a doubt is a loaded linebacker room that returns All-American Xavier Atkins and then has some extremely talented young pieces alongside him in Bryce Deas, Elijah Melendez and Demarcus Riddick. That position will do a lot in Durkin’s defense, especially this year. Safety is also strong with a lot of talented, but young, pieces back there which could help mask questions at cornerback.
Do you have any early predictions for the game, or is it too far out to tell?
The question of who starts at quarterback for the Vols makes this one interesting right now, but the game isn’t until October and gives Heupel a lot of time to get things settled in. It’s also probably worth noting Tennessee comes off a big game against Texas, while Auburn has Vanderbilt the week before. Auburn is going to certainly have a chance to get this one done and he might not admit it, but Golesh will have this one circled on his calendar. At this stage I still give Tennessee an advantage, but as we all know all the offseason talk and predictions get thrown out as soon as teams hit the field.
