The start of spring football practice at USF is less than a month away. Although the 28 early enrollees from high school and the transfer portal have been on campus for conditioning, the pace will increase substantially when the first of 15 practices begins on March 25.
It will culminate with the spring game at Corbett Stadium on April 26.
USF’s recruiting classes have ranked either at or near the top of Group of Five schools since Alex Golesh arrived in December 2023. This one was rated second in the G5 and was ahead of many Power 4 conference programs.
Putting a team together is a science that is a lot more involved than just watching a player on tape and looking at his measurables. Take the additions from the portal, for instance.
“I said when we got here, we were going to build a build program rather than a team. And I feel like each year, we've taken fewer and fewer transfers, but the transfers have been more and more targeted. If you look at the transfers, seven of the 13 are Florida kids,” Golesh said.
“Three are Georgia kids. Again, you see the footprint where we're trying to invest all of our time, and we kind of attacked positions of need there. We don't necessarily want to live in the portal, but we want to be able to continue to fill gaps.”
There are hundreds and hundreds of names to choose from in a portal NCAA database restricted to coaches throughout the country. Coaches can’t possibly gauge whether every player wants to become a Bull, so often, it comes down to old-fashioned networking.
“I told our staff that this was the first time in two years that these are now guys (in the portal) that you recruited. Maybe it was at the last place you coached, but you recruited coming out of high school. So these are guys that you've for the most part, guys that you've had relationships with,” he said.
“You look down the list and virtually every one of these guys that we previously had a relationship with. Each of those connections is different. Some young man goes into the portal, and his name pops up. You're like, man. I didn't think he was going to go in.”
You might have an inside track with that player’s high school coach. A parent could call to tip you off that their son is available. And yes, an agent might be on the other end of the phone in today's NIL world to see if there’s a fit.
You have to take all the calls because you never want to take a chance to pass up someone who could make a substantial impact on your team.
“I'm not gonna get up here on a random about the transfer world, but it is a little bit crazy. But each kid is individually different, and that's why I say our focuses are so heavy on Bay Area kids, or at least for Georgia kids,” Golesh said.
“That’s because you feel like, man, at a minimum, we've been in each of these high schools five times at a minimum. So, some of the relationships with the high school coaches were already pre-established. Some have been established since we've been here. The high school coach can tell you what the heck is going on at a minimum.”
When he was at Tennessee, Golesh successfully recruited receiver Chaz Nimrod and coached him for a year. When Nimrod entered the portal, that relationship helped seal the deal for him to come to USF.
But, as Golesh said, high school players are the priority in recruiting for the Bulls. According to various recruiting sites, the Bulls already have five firm commitments for the Class of 2026. Three of those players are from Florida, and one is from Georgia.
“If I could summarize what we did or what we tried to do at the end of the day, was to evaluate, like crazy, sign a bunch of high school guys that we can continue to build the program with, and then add the portal guys that we felt like give us immediate help, immediate snaps, but at the same time, focus on guys from the area that left and are coming back, Golesh said.
“And I think the first two years, the focus was on get guys in here that can get snaps for us, that can play, that can help us continue to lay a foundation where this class, the portal, was so targeted with local guys, and I think that was our vision two years ago when we got here, was that's what we want to do.”