Alex Golesh details what to expect from USF football in 2023

Intro From the call that, hey, we're going to make you head coach at USF, you've been a busy dude, but exactly what has that been like from just like, alright, we're going to introduce you and then boom, what? What did that look like? Yeah, so it didn't come through a call. It was in my living room. And I said, are you getting on the plane with us? So there wasn't a whole lot of time to think. You know, I've said it before, but I spent, spent some time last summer actually. We went on vacation and just med my wife and spent a bunch of ti. Sitting on the beach, really preparing for if that, if that happened, really planned out what the first day would look like from team meeting to to meeting with the kids to what? The second day? Third day? First week? Literally the first month. I really was, for the first time my career, put a plan together, so I felt really, really prepar. What you're not prepared for is, is the things that you know that you weren't like, truly involved with as a coordinator. I felt like at the previous place I was really involved in a lot of thi, but every now and again you'll t a situation where you're like, , I hadn't really thought about that, so. Navigating those situations, having composure and and handling those situations has been has been the fun part. Sitting down thinking through what you want to do. Learnings How have you kind of learned how to do this job? What are you learning about yourself during this time as we? The experience is what prepares you for it. You know, I didn't take a single shortcut to get here. I I've literally coached on both sides of the ball, done special teams. I've been a recruiting coordina, I've coordinated run game and then obviously have been an offensive coordina. I think the biggest thing, you , hype allowed me at Tennessee to. To put my stamp on on our side of the ball, certainly schematically but but culturally and that was half of the team but you were in front of the group every day. You were building culture. You were building standards. You were holding people to those standards. You were holding half the staff to the standards. Now you just multiply it by two, add a bunch of support departments and and the biggest thing I learned was how to organize and hold people accountable. At the same time you got to hold yourself accountable. So that's the part that I feel e prepared me is, is setting standards, holding people to those standards and then treating people the right . Players certainly support staff, coaches. Learning how to communicate, learning how to get the most out of people. At the end of the day, people just want to be apprecia. It's like any other profession. The thing that I think is really unique in this seat is everybody's looking at you. You don't know what that's like until you're sitting there and literally everybody in the entie certainly are building. You get out to the field and everybody every move you're, you're makin. Is is evaluated, looked at, judged and so. I don't know that I've ever been calculated in my career in terms of man, I got a lot this to this, but more so be yourself. Do things right. But there's no slip ups. You aren't allowed to slip up. So you do have to think before you act. You think before you say. And that's probably the biggest adjustment that's been for me, where literally every step you , people are looking at evaluating, judging. And then either following it or critiquing it and and you know I think a humble approach to where you allow yourself to be critiqd as is as big as anything. Family You talked a lot in your introductory press conference about your family and moving around the lo. Now you're sitting in a head coach position. How are you balancing this new position with family because mae as a coordinator you probably found that balance a little bit. How, how has that been for you? Having a wife and kidst that are truly part of it is a big thing. I think allowing not just my fay but our families to be around. You know, I think the balance cs from having lunch with them for0 minutes and and making sure that that you check up on your kiddos and see how their days are goin. I think being a coach's wife is maybe as lonely of a life choices you can make. So having a support system for the wives. Together it's huge. But. I don't know how it's going to . So far through 3 1/2 months it's been all day every day and having the support of of my wife and certainly the other coaches wives is absolutely hug. But we're going to keep them involved as much as imaginably possible. You know our our wives and kids are at practice. Our wives and kids come up and have lunch when they can. They got lives too you know and and understanding that but made a huge point to our coaches in the offseason we got to work wht I think the pandemic taught us. Is you can do a lot of work from your phone too. So I don't want you missing games in the offseason. Your kiddos are playing. Go watch them. If I've learned anything that those moments go by really, really fast. And and my daughter's getting ta point where she's starting to tk I'm not as cool as I used to bed and there's very few things I want to miss. I think the one opportunity you have in this role is is to set e schedule and you set the schedue to allow for that to happen. We're going to work extremely hard when we're here. But I think you can work really efficiently. The one thing you can never get away from is recruiting. And so as long as you're willing to sit at a ball game and take a phone call, I I think we've got a chance to be successful. Let's talk some ball real quick. We've seen the numbers of what t you guys are able to do at Tennessee. As you come here, what can peope expect offensively from this te? Yeah, a really aggressive minds. You know I think the staple of what we do is the is the tempo and and using the entire width of the field space people out and make them defend with a bunch of grass. I think that won't change. The scheme will change based on who we have the pieces we have, the position groups that are really strong, but in terms of what our identity is, is we're going to be the most. Aggressive team in the country. We're going to use the entire width of the field and we're gonna play really, really fast. That's our identit. It's who we are. It's how we play. Now recruiting to that system, but in the meantime fitting the pieces we have here into that system. Is what's critically important. Defense Going against some of the best defenses in the country, right? You had to scheme against Georgia twice. You had to scheme against Alabama a couple of times. What about facing those defenses can prepare you to face some of the defenses in this conference? The biggest thing I learned from those defenses is you knew those guys were coached up. You knew that no stone was unturned and and the gimmicky stuff wasn't going to work. You were going to have to go win the old fashioned way. Now scheme still matters. Finding holes and schemes still matters. But. You knew you were gonna hao go play harder than them for lo, which is the identity of this entire program. And so I think what it preparesu for is continuing to find create ways to find holes in defenses when you know those defenses are extremely well coached on top of having extremely good players. But still knowing that at the ed of the day it comes down to plag harder than your opponent for longer. Camp So far in the into camp, what he you learned about this year's s? Yeah, you know, I think it's a really fragile group in a lot of ways. It's a group that hadn't won a ton of games, and it's a group that's got a bunch of guys that just came in here and they're infusing new energy into the program. The one thing I'll say is the buy in has been elite. These guys have had a really hue approach to understanding, all right, what has been going on wasn't good enough. And so they've been really open to change, adapting to change. It was the first thing I told him when I got here in December. That change is inevitable. But how you handle that change is going to define who we are. And so far it's defined us in a big way. Haven't had a lot of adversity also haven't had. Another opponent come in here, yet you won't really know where you are until that happens, but how they've handled the day-to-day of the accountability part. The the ability to come in and k as hard as you can every single. Building a true brotherhood where guys actually look out for each othe. And I think when you don't have a ton of success, inevitably guys become selfish. We as human beings become selfi. We go get into self preservation mode. I haven't seen that yet, you know and and it hasn't been perfect. There been hiccups, but the guys have really boughto giving us an opportunity to lea. Show them the way. It's been coach LED so far in every imaginable way. And like I told the guys, it won't flip here until it becomes player LED, until the leadership becomes player driven. So we're empowering them to lea. We got to teach them how to lea. But I've seen a change of what a mentality looks like. What do winners walk like? Talk like? How do they treat other people? How do they dress? How do they walk into the build? What kind of body language do they have? All those things that winners do and and losers don't is the bigt thing we've been hammering on.