Casagrande: Auburn wins the preseason with this great idea

This is an opinion column.It’s hard to win the first week of college football practice because everybody wins the first week of college football practice.Optimism will never be higher anywhere than it is …right … now.Still, extra credit goes to Auburn.For a program desperate to turn the page, this plan to create a true preseason camp is exactly what the Tigers need. If you missed it, new coach Alex Golesh moved the entire program to a hotel for 13 days.Where it’s impossible to completely wall off a modern SEC football program from society, this throwback shows a commitment to the team and to blocking out the noise.Now, let’s get a few things clear.These accommodations will not be confused with Junction, Texas. They will not make movies about this camp in the spirit of Bear Bryant’s 1954 excursion when coaching at Texas A&M.Auburn is taking up residence at the Marriott Resort Grand National in Opelika. This is less of a hotel and more of a resort that’s part of the 54-hole Robert Trent Jones golf complex. (Makes you wonder why Hugh Freeze never schemed up this one).Auburn punter Hudson Kaak took viewers of his TikTok behind the scenes of his room overlooking the multiple pools. Not a terrible place to spend two weeks, nor a cheap one. Would love to see the final bill for 13 nights and a roster of 100-plus players. Based on my own research, a 13-night stay at this resort in a standard room came with a price tag north of $4,200. Surely there’s a bulk discount in play here.That’s a lot of Marriott points too. We only mention the cost because it speaks to the level of commitment to this concept. It achieves the goal without creating the kind of discomfort Bryant designed 72 years ago.“I think what’s changed over the years in college football,” Golesh said Tuesday. “Back in the day everybody stayed in the dorm for four years at most together, year-round. Now, after their freshman year, these guys are all over the place. Some guys got apartments, condos, houses. They’re living a little different than we did when we were in college. So, they’re just everywhere. The distractions naturally come from guys driving back and forth.”The day-to-day can feel too routine when it starts and ends at home with commutes bookending that experience. There’s something about disrupting the drum beat of that repetitive cycle to bring a different degree of focus.If there ever was a program that could use a jostling, it’s Auburn. We don’t need to repeat the stat about consecutive seven-loss seasons.What they’ve been doing for about a decade hasn’t been working, so why not mix it up? The ritual seems to work well at Ohio State.The Buckeyes have been doing the preseason camp hotel experience for years. Not that this is the key to building the most consistent winner in that span, but there must be something behind setting the tone with a solid foundation.“We’ll take their car keys (Tuesday) and they won’t have them,” Golesh said. “So, they would have to get really, really creative. It’s totally on eliminating distraction, one. Teaching what waking up and what a day in a structure should look like for an elite, high-level athlete would be the second component of it.”They paired veterans with young guys for rooming assignments, another clever way to disrupt normal routines. Forcing that interaction breaks down invisible barriers in a way that can only build tighter bonds that might not exist otherwise. Linebacker Xavier Atkins instantly smiled Wednesday when a reporter asked about the temporary Auburn football HQ. Truly. He lit up at the very mention of the resort and how it eliminates the natural distractions of life.“It’s like facility on film and just back to the hotel,” he said. “So, it’s just making sure like we just locked in and like know what we want because we all know distractions can come. So, he that’s the biggest thing like he’s trying to ease out all distractions so we can just focus on what’s ahead and what’s important.”For these two weeks, it’s football, team and two bus rides a day.The outside world is waiting on the other side of this. Check-out day coincides with the start of classes as the countdown to opening day with Baylor ticks away. Of course, it will be impossible to quantify the impact of 13 nights at a golf resort once the games start. You can’t win a game in the first week of August.But you can build a foundation that’s clearly been missing in Auburn recently.Credit to Golesh for laying that groundwork.