Todd Golden addresses first SEC championship game coming against Auburn, Bruce Pearl

After winning three games in three days, Florida will now get a chance to win a fourth in four days as they take on Auburn in the SEC Tournament championship.

In just his second season as head coach, Todd Golden has the Gators firmly in the NCAA Tournament and in position to win an auto-bid Sunday afternoon if they can topple Auburn. Speaking of the Tigers, they’re not a foe that Coach Golden is necessarily thrilled to take on, even though he was once an assistant at Auburn under Bruce Pearl in the early years, from 2014-2016, before he would go on to San Francisco.

“Yeah, I mean, I would be lying if I said I would not — I would prefer it to be somebody else,” said Golden of the matchup. “But to meet them in the championship, it’s going to be just an awesome game and a great opportunity for us.”

Florida and Auburn only faced once in the regular season, with the Tigers traveling to Gainesville only to lose in a landslide back in early February. UF was up by nearly 30 at one point and wound up winning by 16 at home against Auburn, which was one of their best wins of the season. Despite a terrific outing in the regular season, he knows not to expect such a beatdown again.

“Neither side will be taking it easy on each other. Obviously they’ve had a great year. They have a great team. We played very well when we played them the first time. We had them at home. Obviously it’s going to be a tougher challenge now in a neutral court.”

For Auburn, success in SEC play and in the SEC Tournament has been more common under Bruce Pearl and circa 2018. The Tigers obviously made that Final Four in 2019 but have won the league twice in the last seven years and made a slew of NCAA Tournaments as well. Golden sort of views his program as having a similar trajectory to what Auburn built under Pearl.

“Both of our programs, obviously they’ve been established, and now we’re becoming that way. We’re trying to get there and stay there. Both teams playing really well at the right time obviously. I think tomorrow will be a great game.”

The Gators and Tigers will do battle at 1 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. CT in the SEC championship game live from Nashville, TN.

Florida has reached the title game after erasing a second half deficit to come back and beat Georgia in the opening round, before they took care of Alabama in with ease and then dispatched a scorching hot Texas A&M team. Meanwhile, Auburn breezed by South Carolina and won a rock fight vs. Mississippi State to arrive in the title.