SerpApi.Org
You hate that he left. You hate that he took so many players with him. You hate the catty way he talked about USF’s stature once he was no longer on the payroll.
Mostly, you hate that he may be right.
With a new college football season barely a month away, Alex Golesh returned to town to remind South Florida fans of what might have been. Now that he’s taken his perpetually combative vibe to a bigger program, Golesh was in Tampa to woo an Auburn booster group Monday night and make an appearance at the SEC football media days event on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, USF fans continued to seethe over Golesh’s departure.
It’s not so much that he left — Willie Taggart didn’t hear the same amount of animosity when he bolted for Oregon — but rather the way the story played out.
Golesh had spent three years talking obsessively about raising USF’s profile and creating an elite program and, for the most part, he backed up his words by reviving a program that had been steered into a ditch. But just as the Bulls were flirting with a College Football Playoff berth last fall, Golesh was secretly talking to Arkansas and Auburn about his next job.
And while the coach was planning his departure, USF was upset by Memphis (a 6 ½-point underdog) and Navy (a 10 ½-point underdog) to fall short of the American Conference title game. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Golesh was later quoted saying that he came to Auburn with a specific reason in mind.
“I felt like you could win a national title here,” Golesh told USA Today in April, “where at South Florida, I think you and everybody else knows you never were going to get there.”
Salt? Meet wound.
It was a graceless shot at a program that had given Golesh his first chance to be a head coach. It was also on-brand for a coach who seems to view life as a zero-sum game.
On the other hand, he had a point.
South Florida has never won a conference title, nor has it played in a league title game. The Bulls have never played in a major bowl game and have one top-20 finish in program history. And, even then, they were No. 19. So, yeah, it’s hard to envision a national championship scenario without some dramatic steps forward.
That’s part of what made it so painful to see Golesh leverage USF for a better job after just three seasons. The Bulls seemed to have a real direction under Golesh. They had swagger and purpose. That’s not to say USF can’t continue its upward trajectory with new coach Brian Hartline, but it’s the idea of starting over again. The last five head coaches at USF have lasted an average of 3.2 seasons, either because they didn’t win enough or because they won so much that a bigger program came calling.
The hope was that Golesh might end that cycle, but instead he opted to chase a bigger paycheck with a more prestigious office. And he took 13 USF transfers with him.
To be fair, Golesh was at least gracious about USF in a news conference on Tuesday.
“Thankful to be back in Tampa. We spent just over three years here and met some incredible people, some dear friends, still,” Golesh said. “This community was incredible to my family and I am really, really thankful for my time here, the way we were treated and the commitment that was made to us here in Tampa.”
Otherwise, Golesh sounded just like you remembered. He talked about toughness. He talked not about specific goals, but about players being the best they can be. He talked about the one word — elite — that was part of nearly every conversation he had during his time on Fowler Avenue.
In the end, Golesh got what he wanted from USF: a step up the coaching ladder.
And USF got what it wanted from Golesh: a more visible profile and greater hope for the future.
If the final days turned a little contentious, that’s not unusual in the business of college football. And if Golesh is now the villain that Bulls fans love to loathe, that’s also an acceptable part of the sport’s tradition.
For USF fans to have the final laugh, they need to somehow elevate their program in ways that Golesh apparently did not think was possible.
In that sense, Alex Golesh is still motivating the Bulls.
John Romano can be reached at [email protected]. Follow @romano_tbtimes.
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