Tampa, Fla. – USF coach Alex Golesh repeated the same thing in his team's first two wins – another shocking blowout in the season's season opener against Boise State, another shocking guy against Florida last weekend – “This isn't my South Florida, my brother!”
The 2-0 Bulls ranked for the first time since 2018, won the Gator victory for the first time in school history and was an early favorite to win five automatic berths in the college football playoffs.
But there is more meaning behind these words than just a statement about the winning of a large non-conference. These nine words praise a close friend of Golesh.
In terms of his headphones, Golesh's abbreviation is the initial AAR of the late USF men's basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim.
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Golesh and Abdur-Rahim were hired within three months of each other, similar coaches with similar beliefs, with the same mission: to make USF stand out. Abdur-Rahim did this at Kennesaw State's previous stop, developing the Owls from a singles team to a NCAA tournament.
Golesh inherited a singles football program and sought advice from Abdur-Rahim. A few days after Abdur-Rahim was hired, Golesh went to his office to meet him.
“They're really just doing what we're trying to do in Kennesaw, building it the right way,” Golesh said.
The two immediately hit him. Their children went to the same school. Their wives become friends. Their first spring together, in 2023, Abdur-Rahim will come out to practice and quickly become a fixture for the football program.
He will text Golesh after the first season and put forward his own ideas on a successful four-year plan. When Abdur-Rahim leads USF for the best season ever in 2023-24, Golesh and his son Barrett will compete in basketball, winning the first conference championship and school record 25 games. It was during that run that Abdur-Rahim said, “This is not South Florida, my brother!”
Golesh felt the presence around him when the Bulls beat Boise State 34-7 on August 28. He recalls what Abdur-Rahim told him from the beginning: Grade 3 is when players stop hoping they can win. Now, they are beginning to believe that they can win.
“Amir used to always say, 'Until they saw it, they didn't believe it,'” Golesh told ESPN. “I think 'ok. They believed it.'”
This belief is why USF is 2-0. The question is: How did Golesh make them believe it?
Amir Abdur-Rahim, Michael Kelly and Alex Golesh were at the introductory press conference for Abdur-Rahim in March 2023.
Golesh raised questions when he met with then USF athletic director Michael Kelly to discuss the December 2022 public coaching work. USF has had moments of success in its short soccer history – including back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2016 and 2017 – but the latest record is Abysmal. The Bulls ended 2022 with a 1-11 record, winning four wins in three years. The program never won a conference title.
Golesh wants to know immediately – will USF provide the resources needed to win? Will they give him time to turn the plan around? The answer to both is yes.
“His experience elsewhere shows what he needs,” Kelly told ESPN. “I never felt that it was unreasonable. It was just, 'This is how we want to win this league.'”
Kelly said the size of the staff increased, and the assistant coach salary pool increased by $1.5 million. The recruitment budget has increased. Golesh also made improvements to the entire nutrition, strength and conditioning program, as well as sports training staff.
For example, under the leadership of previous staff, players ate breakfast and lunch, but there was no dinner in the facility. But now, they eat three meals a day and can use nutrition in the weight room. Plus, each team meeting room has plenty of mini fridges and snack baskets.
There is no sign of a football commitment approved by a $349 million football stadium on campus, which will open in 2027, which has been the idea for decades. Most days, USF players practice the sound of steel pillars, just outside the driving range.
“This has built the foundation together with what we do on the football field,” said quarterback Byrum Brown. “We put down the dirt. We are putting down the pole. We see what the program can really be in the next few years.”
Resources are one thing. Buy and belief are another. Center Cole remembers Golesh's meeting with the return player the next day of his job.
“He said, ‘I just need a little bit of blind faith’,” Best said. “And I said, ‘I’m going to hand it over to him and I’m going to buy anything. It's hard sometimes, but I knew in his first few days, that's 'this guy. '”
Sixth-year defender Mac Harris played in the three USF teams who won four games in total before Golesh arrived, and he said those teams often find ways to cut down or avoid doing tough and uncomfortable things.
Goresh's Bulls do not take a simple way out.
“Ag has been saying, leaving no rocks behind,” Harris said. “Some people call them clichés, but they mean something, and they bear the weight. I think doing this every day, keeping your teammates responsible for it, they keep you responsible for it and expecting to win. ”
In its first season as head coach, USF hit 7-6, the second best win improvement of all FBS programs in 2023. Then last season, USF caught a glimpse of its potential, winning three-thirds before losing before losing, before playing halfway before losing. Brown missed the final seven games of the season with a low leg injury, while USF still ended 7-6 and entered another bowl game.
With a healthy Brown and 15 other starters, Golesh and his team are optimistic about the possibilities this season.
USF started the season with a boom in the declaration of Boise State, the five best teams last year. Julio Aguilar/Getty Images
Yes, in his job interview, the start of the 2025 season is that Golesh is working on a future timeline with Kelly. He lowered his head and saw the stupidity of three non-conferences: Boise State University, Florida in Miami. There was initial doubt. Not because Golesh wants to shy away from those teams. However, in the same season, three straight games seemed “a bit crazy”.
“The initial conversation was, 'We'll handle it when we get there, but it won't look like that,' Golesh said. “We were in January last year and it still looked like that, and I thought, 'You know what? Let's go play.”
Last June, when Kelly was about to leave USF as Naval Sports Director Job, Golesh told him: “We're going to win those games and you're going to tell me, 'I told you.'”
If the people who beat Boise State get attention across the country, then Florida's victory legalizes the USF in a bigger way. For decades, Florida has been in existence: Miami, Florida and Florida. When the University of California (UCF) joined Big 12, it entered the Power 4 meeting, allowing the USF to strive for national significance in the 5 groups.
This helps explain why Golesh had 500 text messages waiting for him after defeating the Gators 18-16.
The last second defeat of Florida announced to the country's USF. Julio Aguilar/Getty Images
Bass said he had eight former teammates calling him after the victory to congratulate him. “It brought me tears,” Best said. “I took a step back and let everything soaked. It wasn't easy. It was the hardest thing in my life, and seeing it rewards, it's just the world.”
The process is that, so USF has no time to celebrate the start of 2-0 this week. No deck to travel to Miami No. 5. Golesh came to the office last Sunday and said he had “ripped” the game video with his staff.
“We haven’t arrived yet,” Golesh said. “We had two really good wins. We had another really great game and then over the last two years we’ve averaged at this conference. We still have a lot to do.
“As Amir once said, 'Wear the headphones. Listen to nothing.”
His voice is sad as he recalls the conversation with Abdur-Rahim. They should do this together and celebrate each other's victory as if they were their own. After Abdur-Rahim fell ill last fall, he stopped practicing but refused to tell Golesh what was wrong.
Then Golesh got a long text from Abdur-Rahim. He can still save it in his phone. Abdur-Rahim wrote that partly it was his preparation to fight against everything he had, but it seemed unsure if the doctor had any answers.
Abdur-Rahim died on October 24, 2024, at the age of 43, and his complications emerged in medical procedures related to his undisclosed illness. The entire USF community (including football teams) feels lost. To pay tribute to his friends, Goresh one day Abdur-Rahim gave a speech to the team during practice and placed it in the corridor of the football facility.
“Coach Golesh reminds us of a great man, and the lessons and advice he has instilled in us,” Brown said.
Golesh may not respond to every one of the hundreds of text messages he has received over the past two weeks. But there are two he will never forget. Amir's widow Arianne Abdur-Rahim texted Golesh after his victory at Boise State and again after winning in Florida.
“Amir is looking for you.”