Byrum Brown starts, captains Auburn's opener against Baylor
Byrum Brown gets the start and a captain's patch in his first game on the Plains, as Alex Golesh's Auburn era opens against Baylor in Atlanta this afternoon.
Byrum Brown's job was never a competition — now he's wearing the patch too
Byrum Brown's job was never really a competition, and by kickoff it was official in more ways than one. Auburn's Week 1 depth chart had already locked in the South Florida transfer at quarterback, and this week he backed it up in his own words, telling SI he isn't worried about Baylor's defense: "We should be just fine... The name of the game is that we should just be us, just be our offense." Coach Alex Golesh has been saying much the same thing about camp all along, crediting the transfer wave that followed him from South Florida for a locker room that "finished well" and stayed "really intentional" through August, per WBRC.
The program made it formal this week, naming Brown one of 5 team captains for the opener — alongside safeties Champ Anthony and Cade Carlson, offensive lineman Cole Best and linebacker Elijah Melendez, per Saturday Down South. A transfer quarterback wearing a captain's patch in his very first game on campus is not the norm anywhere, let alone in the SEC, and Auburn's own account made a point of posting it out to the Auburn Family before the season even kicked off.
The one room Golesh still isn't sold on is the one Brown will be throwing to. "The challenge for us is how fast can we get those guys to grow up, and they've been challenged now," he told WBRC — and the depth behind Keshaun Singleton and Jeremiah Koger is thinner than the coach would like. Per Covers' aggregated injury table, B. Williams Jr. is questionable with a lower-body injury and C. Neptune is questionable with a shoulder issue, and neither wide receiver has been ruled out for this afternoon.
Last season ended with Alabama walking out of Jordan-Hare
Auburn's 2025 season closed the way it usually does on the Plains — with Alabama in the building. The Crimson Tide left Jordan-Hare with a 27-20 win on November 30, capping a finish that also included a 62-17 win over Mercer and a 33-24 road win at Arkansas sandwiched around back-to-back losses to Kentucky (10-3) and Vanderbilt (45-38).
None of that carries into 2026 — Auburn is 0-0 under a new head coach, and last season's results are backdrop, not form. But that finish, and the Alabama loss specifically, is the last competitive snapshot anyone has of this program before Golesh's first game kicks off in Atlanta.
Baylor's an "or" away from settled everywhere but quarterback
This is technically a home game — it is just being played 100 miles from Jordan-Hare, inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and Golesh is treating it like one. "We've got such a huge alumni base there. That place will be rocking with blue and orange... it's a national stage, on ABC, right in the middle of the day on the opening weekend," he said this week, per 247Sports. Tiger Walk is making the trip with the team — relocated to the Home Depot Backyard outside Gate 1 at 1:15 p.m. Eastern, as Auburn's own account posted this week — and SEC Nation is setting up in the city for it.
The opponent isn't a mystery, either. Auburn beat Baylor 38-24 last season in Waco, and the Bears have Sawyer Robertson, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound redshirt senior, back at quarterback after running the offense all of last season, per a team-released chart cited by SI. Everywhere else Baylor's two-deep reads like a program still sorting itself out — running back Bryson Washington holds the top spot, but the defensive front is a string of "or" designations down to a three-way scramble at free safety, and even the kicking job is unsettled between a true freshman and a redshirt freshman.
Yahoo Sports framed it as close to a one-shot proposition for two new coaching staffs — Golesh and his Baylor counterpart both making their debuts the same afternoon, on a national ABC window watching how each installs an offense on opening weekend. For Auburn, that stakes-raising is voluntary: Golesh picked this stage on purpose, calling the recruiting exposure of a game in Atlanta "certainly... great for us," per 247Sports.
Auburn opens as a 6.5-point favorite in a game the market thinks will get loose
Auburn opened as a 6.5-point favorite over Baylor, and the total was set at 59.5 — a number that reads more like a shootout line than a season opener between two staffs still installing their systems. Baylor finished last season with a 24-31 loss to Houston, and its own depth chart suggests a defense still sorting out who plays where, which is likely part of why the total climbed as high as it did.
Kickoff for Auburn's game — a true home game every way but geography — comes this afternoon vs. Baylor. It's the first real look anyone gets at what Golesh's version of this offense looks like with Brown, a captain in his first start, running it.