USF's Alex Golesh Keeps HIs Focus on the Bulls Even As Buzz Builds About Other Jobs

It is inevitable that a major college football program -- maybe more than one -- will try to lure Alex Golesh away from USF.

That doesn't mean he will go, but in today's cut-throat atmosphere, power conference programs will try to poach him. There will be great offers with guaranteed cash and big buyouts, and that's just the way it is. And barely halfway through the season, the rumors are rumors.

Pro tip: It's way too early to put much stock in any time you read Golesh's name as a possibility for another job. The noise about Golesh is nothing more than static from rivals hoping he will leave or reporters basically trying to round up the usual suspects when an opening occurs and they have to write something.

Take Penn State, for instance. Golesh seems to be a hot name on the lips of more than a few Penn State fans, 99 percent of whom have never seen his team play.

One good thing about Golesh is that if you ask him a question, he will give you an answer. So at his regular Tuesday news conference, giving credit where due, Joey Knight of the Tampa Bay Times asked Golesh about his name being linked to all these jobs.

"Where I hear it is on the recruiting side because it's been this way for two years now. That question to me is, 'Coach, how long are you gonna be here?' And I tell everybody the truth," he said.

"It's the same thing I told everybody that's ever asked one, I promise you I'm not talking to anybody. I literally write it down on my calendar to make sure I check in with my wife every day. I'll literally get to 9:30 p,m. and, oh my God. I wonder how my family is. I am focused and locked in on our program and what we're doing, and I've always been like that. I was that way as an assistant. I was that way as a coordinator, been that way as a head coach."

Of course, like all head coaches at major colleges, Golesh has an agent whose job is to give him opportunities to move up the food chain -- if that, indeed, is what Golesh wants. But I've said all along and will continue to say that Golesh won't go for some piddling, middling P4 job where the alumni will want his neck if he doesn't have them in the national championship game within three (maybe two) years.

"I came here to build something really, really special. I chose to come here. I see this place as a really, really cool spot where you can build it the way you want to build it. They've invested greatly. They promised they would when we took the job and they upheld every promise that they ever made to us. I've never in my career, outside of coming here, chased a the job ever, and I don't intend to," he said.

"I didn't have nothing growing up. I've got more than I've ever needed. We're super, super happy here. My family's incredibly happy. To me, that's more important than any conference affiliation. I've never, just never thought of it in the sense of, I gotta go chase a job. Just never have. I don't know. Maybe I'm different, maybe I messed up, maybe I should (have chased a job). And clearly, this profession is getting crazier by the minute.

"I think, when you have a really good job and you work with really good people, and you've got it how you want it, and you feel like you're getting better, and you feel like there's a ceiling that you're nowhere near, I'm just not ready to say, man, well, what else is out there? That's just me, and some people, I'm sure, will call BS on it, and that's fine."

I asked offensive lineman Derek Bowman if the talk about Golesh and other jobs has seeped into the locker room.

"Coach has always sat up and told us the truth, in every team meeting, every huddle that he's ever spoken to us in, and he told the team that there's no place else in the country he'd rather be right now," Bowman said.

"And so I wholeheartedly believe him, and I know he's 100% committed to this team and this season, so I have no worries or doubts about any of the outside noise."

So people can say what they want, and maybe an offer will come that will sweep Golesh off his feet. Right now, I don't see it, but it's mid-October, and already there are multiple jobs open. Maybe the University of Florida job opens -- it probably does.

He was a graduate assistant at Oklahoma State.

His wife is from Arkansas, and that job is open. Circumstances can change.

But I believe Golesh when he says things like this.

"I'm so excited to be the head football coach here, so excited to represent this university. I'm excited to build something I don't know, it's mid-October, and it's 80 degrees, I guess, unless you've lived some of the places I've lived, you, probably don't appreciate it. I do. I'm really happy, I really am," he said.

"So I guess, I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for, but it's the truth. And I don't know, I will say this. I'll leave it at this. People are talking and saying that it's a huge credit to our players, to huge credit to our staff. Because the alternative, as you see when you turn on every Monday morning, it seems like this year, is the alternative is that you're not employed. And so if it's people talking about you having a job or other jobs, or the alternative is that you're not employed. I'll take that one, but it's a credit to our players. It's a credit to our staff. It's a credit to this university that they've been able to put a product on the field that people are attracted to. People want to know what's going on here."