TAMPA, Fla. -- Alex Golesh can recount all the details of Auburn's dominant 2004 season or 2010 national title, but a funny thing happened when he hit the road recruiting after taking over as the Tigers' coach in December.
"That's where it really hit me," Golesh said Tuesday at SEC media days. "When I'm talking to a high school junior, the last time Auburn had a winning season, the kid was in sixth grade."
Indeed, Auburn hasn't finished with at least seven wins in a season since 2019. Golesh is the school's fourth different head coach since then.
So, yes, he knows he's on the clock.
"My mindset is I want to do it for the long haul, where at [USF] we tried to set it up to peak in Year 3, 4, 5," Golesh said. "But I think I feel just a hair more pressure to peak earlier than that."
That advanced timeline means selling recruits on a vision for returning Auburn to a status many of those recruits weren't alive to witness firsthand.
From 2003 to 2020, Auburn spent at least some part of 14 different seasons ranked in the AP top 10. But since 2019, when Auburn finished ranked No. 14 nationally, the Tigers have rarely sniffed national relevance.
The plan for that, Golesh said, has been investing serious time and money in simply getting recruits on campus, showing them the energy surrounding the program now, and telling the story of what Auburn once was -- and could be again.
"This was a top-5 program in the country for a long time -- like 10 years ago," Golesh said. "We've got to get it back to that. And that's where all the time and energy has been getting kids around us. ... It's been changing a mindset even in our own state."
That in-state conversation has shifted a bit, too, Golesh said. Nick Saban and Alabama dominated the landscape for so long that Auburn was forced to cede a lot of ground.
No more, Golesh said.
It helps right now that the guy that won a bunch of [titles] isn't there right now," Golesh said of Saban. "It's there for the taking a little bit."
The biggest part of getting Auburn back to title contention, however, is simply getting everyone climbing in the same direction.
Golesh said he'd heard all the rumblings about a lack of alignment and a disconnect among many top stakeholders before he interviewed at Auburn, and he said his first question of athletic director John Cohen was about how invested the Tigers' power brokers were in getting in line behind Golesh's vision.
The answer -- at least so far -- has been encouraging, he said, with Cohen working as his point person and no distractions from outside the program.
"There's one guy that hired me," Golesh said of Cohen. "When you talk about alignment, our president called me last night to wish me luck at media day. They've been nothing but supportive. ... There's people we need financially to help us, but every issue I've had has been [dealt with by] John."