This time around, Golesh and the Bulls are coming off a strong finish to the 2023 season that included a winning record and the largest shutout win in a bowl game that college football has ever seen.
That huge turnaround has led to much higher expectations heading into 2024, but Golesh says the message and the goal remain unchanged.
"It’s literally the same message as it was a year ago," Golesh says. "I go to Media Days last year, and we’re picked to finish 13th in the league. I leave Media Days, and I’m like, ‘Everybody thinks we suck.’ Because I was in my own bubble so much that I’m like, we added some pieces, we’ve got a chance to compete. But then nobody even asks any questions at Media Day. We were so irrelevant. I’m like, ‘How do I handle this? Everybody thinks we suck.' I know our players saw this, that we’re picked to finish virtually in last place in the conference."
Golesh and the Bulls capped off their 2023 season with a historic bowl game win.
Nathan Ray Seebeck&solUSA TODAY Sports
"And I went right back to, ‘Who cares?’ Let’s go back and work on our processes," Golesh continues. "Let’s make sure we’re doing the right things every single day, and not worrying about the results. And the end result was what the end result was. Then I had to go back and evaluate the end result and say, “Was there a correlation? Was our process right, was it not?’ And we went right back in the Spring to saying, ‘Listen, I told you a year ago, don’t listen to anything, don’t read anything, attack your process. So, I’m telling you that again.’ It’s just flipped, what the narrative is.
Despite the immediate impact he had in leading one of the biggest turnarounds in college football last season, Golesh has been too busy to truly reflect on any instant success, instead looking ahead to the next task and tackling the places where there's still room for improvement.
"Where our profession has gotten now, there’s really no time to reflect," says the former Tennessee offensive coordinator, who helped engineer the nation's top offense in Knoxville the year before taking the USF job. "And I say that in the sense that there’s just a next, and a next, and a next, and there’s no real off time, to be honest with you. The little bit of time we do get to take away, you’re just thinking about what’s next, what’s coming, how do I make it better?"
“I think in any organization, establishing the processes is probably really hard," Golesh continues. "But I think upholding the standard of each of those processes is probably even harder. I feel like we left so much out there (last season). We had to go back and look at our process and say, ‘Where were the gaps where we didn’t play elite football consistently, all the time?’ You could say we played good football at the end of the season. You could say we finished well. But where did that gap come from in the middle of the year? How does that happen? So, I think it helps us a lot going into Year 2, because it humbles you enough to say that our process wasn’t perfect. Where was it wrong? Where can we improve it?"
USF hung tough with eventual CFP participant Alabama in a 17-3 home loss early in the season, giving Golesh early evidence that they had some solid building blocks to work with. After frustrating back-to-back losses in October that saw them give up 56 points each to UAB and Florida Atlantic, the Bulls bounced back in a big way, winning four of their last six games to finish 7-6 on the year.
They became bowl-eligible with a 48-14 blowout win over Charlotte in their regular-season finale in front of their home crowd, and followed that up with a dominant 45-0 win against Syracuse in the Boca Raton Bowl.
Golesh is clearly proud of the improvement the Bulls showed during his first season at the helm, but he's got much higher hopes for the future of the program, in every facet. He's already got the Bulls moving in the right direction on the recruiting trail, signing the top-ranked class in the American Conference, according to 247 Sports .
But that's not enough to satisfy Golesh as he looks to turn the Bulls into one of the premier programs in the sport.
"Again, it’d be easy to say, ‘We’ve got the top Group of 5 class in the country. We’re good.’ But the challenge is to have a top-25 recruiting class in the country, because we have the resources to do so, and we underachieved," Golesh says. "So I’ve gone back and attacked our process even harder in recruiting because this is a top-25 job in the country. We have to recruit at that level."
Being a successful head coach in major college football requires the ability to make tough decisions, and Golesh faced plenty of those during his first full offseason leading the USF program, identifying areas that needed a boost and making it happen.
"We made some changes on our coaching staff for a lot of reasons, because I didn’t feel like we were up to standard," Golesh admits. "But when we got back in January, we got right back to building our processes. With players individually, building their processes. With us looking at our processes, offensively and defensively. We’ve gone and attacked our nutrition portion. I feel like we’ve built a really good foundation for what we do nutritionally, but I don’t think we’re at the standard we need to be with that. We literally built that department up to more than what we had. From the player development side, from the mental health side, establishing and building processes there."
Expectations are much higher for Golesh and the Bulls heading into Year 2.
USF Athletics
"And then going back and evaluating our processes with how we practice," Golesh continued. "We’ve changed what fall camp looks like for us. I felt like early in the year, we were super up-and-down, physically. Did we do too much at fall camp? Easy to look at. We have actual data now, in terms of GPS numbers and workload number, and sat down with our sports science staff and redid fall camp. Didn’t totally scrap it, but kinda scrapped it. It’s a long-winded answer, but enforcing or holding people to a standard, and continuously questioning the process, I feel like has become my No. 1 job.”
While he acknowledges that last year's success has been a huge positive in many ways for the program, it's also resetting the bar across the board as the Bulls look to return to national prominence after a long stretch of lean years.
"For 18 months, we’ve fought to create expectations, and we’ve raised the standard to where there are expectations," Golesh says. "Now, can we handle the expectations? Well, if you’re process-driven, it doesn’t matter, because the expectations don’t define us. But on the outside, it’s certainly great that people are talking about us. It’s awesome to see our logo on things, and our brand growing. But I’ve challenged our coaches to coach even harder, I’ve challenged our players to lock in even more and worry about process more than they ever have, because now they actually understand the expectations."
After the success he had at Tennessee, Golesh likely had multiple options to advance his coaching career last offseason, but chose to take the USF job despite the daunting task left behind by his predecessor.
"Our ceiling is so high here," Golesh says. "I go back to the reason I took this job and not another one is because the ceiling is so high here. Maybe there isn’t one. There is no limit on what we can do."
There are immediate goals for Golesh and the Bulls, but he's laser-focused on prioritizing process over results, and making it clear that the overall growth of the program will always be bigger than one person.
"One thing I’m so guarded against is, ‘Man, we need this guy for our team.’ We’re building a program," Golesh says. "I want to be competitive. I want to win a national title. I want all those things, too. But I want to build a program. And a program has sustainability over time. I want to see growth in every aspect of our program. And so far this offseason, we’ve had monumental growth. Physically, mentally, recruiting, our collective all of it. The coaching changes we made after the season allowed us to grow. I understand that I get measured by wins and losses, but as we build a program, the biggest thing I worry about is our process being right, but also just continuing to grow. Myself, continuing to grow as a head coach. There’s plenty of stuff I screwed up last year. I think if we show growth, I would find (this season) to be successful."
Last year's quick turnaround is just the beginning for Golesh and the Bulls.
David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
Golesh also knows that the outside perception of his program will be defined in very simple terms at the end of the year, and while he accepts that reality, his perspective on the health and success of his program has a much wider lens.
"I’m also guarded about who defines our success," Golesh says. "And again, publicly, I get evaluated on wins and losses. I get that, I understand that, I’m not naive to that. But internally, how we define success is, “Are people becoming the best versions of themselves?” Our players, our coaches, our staff. So, as long as we can be the best versions of ourselves going into the season, and then maintaining it and continuing to grow, I think I would be really, really excited at the end of the season."
The Bulls are a popular dark-horse pick to be the first Group of 5 team to earn a spot in the newly expanded College Football Playoff this season. They've got a brand-new on-campus stadium currently set to break ground during Homecoming week this October, and scheduled to open in time for the 2027 season.
They even have a legitimate NFL franchise quarterback prospect in Byrum Brown, who spurned the transfer portal this offseason in favor of continuing to invest in what Golesh is building in Tampa.
There are big things ahead for the Bulls, and Golesh wants his program to be ready to meet the moment in every way.
"I think where we’re going, where we’re headed, we’d better have a foundation," Golesh says. "Just like we talked about with all the changes in the sport. We were ready for the changes, we were prepared for that. Now, can we be prepared for when we make another change, another leap. Can we be prepared internally, from an athletic department standpoint, from a football program standpoint, from a stadium standpoint, from a new facility standpoint...can we be prepared for that? Because I think where we’re going is gonna be really fun to watch. It’s gonna be really fun to be a USF alum."
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