As you scroll down the list of new players for the USF football team, look for more than just the basic information about how they played. Which high school program they played for is just as important, maybe more so.
Focus more on that than how many stars they have by their name. That's all kind of subjective anyway.
Defensive end Eli Jones was a defensive end for Venice High, the Florida Class 7-A state champion with a 14-1 record.
Tight end Tayte Crable played for Archbishop Hoban High School in the northeastern part of Ohio. The area is filled with powerhouse teams and Hoban finished last season 12-3 and won two playoff games.
Wide receiver Jeremiah Koger played for St. Francis Academy in Baltimore. His team went 8-3 against a schedule that was loaded with top-level prep programs, including Mater Dei in Santa Ana, Ca. and IMG Academy in Bradenton. His team beat IMG 30-3.
Freshman quarterback Locklan Hewlett started for St. Augustine, which went to the state title game in 2023 and finished last season 11-2.
There is more, but you get the point. The Bulls prioritize Tampa Bay and Florida players, along with those from Georgia, and expand the territory when the opportunity presents itself. They look for players who are used to winning and being pushed. That’s precisely the kind of player USF coach Alex Golesh pursues as he continues to build the Bulls.
“You want to be in the programs that win football games,” Golesh said. “As you look at a profile of who we're trying to get, the character, the ability to work through hard times, the ability to face adversity, almost outweighs physical characteristics in some ways.
“That’s because we feel like if we get a young man here, we can develop them with the resources we have and the people we have. We can develop them better than anybody in the country.”
The hard part is that many better-funded Power 4 conference have the same philosophy, so the Bulls are competing against elite programs to get the kind of players they need. That’s where relationships come in, and those are built over years of mutual trust.
Those relationships, by the way, aren’t just with the excellent coaches at programs like Lakeland, Venice, St. Thomas Aquinas, Orlando Edgewater, Armwood and Plant in Tampa, and any number of Miami programs.
Yes, you have to know those coaches and their programs, but you also better know a program like Union County in northern Florida. It’s a small school with a big-time dedication to winning.
“Schools like that don't produce 15 Division I kids a year. They produce maybe two. But those kids grew up in that community. That's where they went to middle school, that's where they went to high school,” Golesh said.
“They are coached incredibly hard. They run high-level schemes. They lift. They run in the off season, they run track, they play basketball. So maybe they're not producing 15 kids a year, but they are producing 11 and 12 wins a year. Those guys know how to how to win, know how to work, know how to stick through hard and not transfer. That's what you're looking for.”