USF (3-4; 1-2 American) at FAU (2-5; 0-3 American)
Friday, Nov. 1 • 7:30 P.M. (ET) • FAU Stadium (30,000) • Boca Raton, Fla. 
SURFACE: Natural, Bermuda
TV: ESPN2: Anish Shroff (P-by-P),
Andre Ware (analyst) & Paul Carcaterra (sideline)
AUDIO: 102.5 - HD2 The Strike & Bulls Unlimited (TuneIn)
SERIES: USF leads, 3-2
IN TAMPA: Tied, 2-2
IN BOCA RATON: USF leads, 1-0; last, W 35-23, '07
LAST TIME: FAU won, 56-14, in Tampa in 2023
- was the first meeting since 2013
STREAK: FAU, won last two
LAST USF WIN: 2010, 31-3 in Tampa
USF GAME NOTES

Last June, a few months after the first regular-season conference championship in USF men's basketball history, Coach Amir Abdur-Rahim talked to the players.

The USF football players.

"Amir spent so much time with us last spring,'' Bulls football head coach Alex Golesh said Tuesday during his weekly news conference. "I just asked him to be real, which he always was. I wanted to know, 'What do you see (from the football team)? What do you see as your keys to how you got it (basketball program) turned around?'

"I wanted him to talk to our team. All Amir asked for was no cameras. He flatly said, 'I want no cameras. Shut the doors. Let's go.' And it was about as real of an hour-and-a-half as you could have imagined. I feel like our players really got to know Amir.''

And that's why the tragedy of last Thursday, when Abdur-Rahim died at age 43, resonated so sharply with not only the basketball team, but the football program and all the other 19 USF athletic teams as well.

With the Bulls (3-4, 1-2 American Athletic Conference) preparing for Friday night's ESPN2 game against the Florida Atlantic Owls (2-5, 0-3) at Boca Raton, Golesh said the football program will honor the memory of Abdur-Rahim.

Bulls players will wear helmet stickers and the football coaches will have patches on their game-day apparel to salute the basketball coach who had a profound influence on USF's athletic program and the university as a whole.

"Amir was a guy who united a community and gave more of himself than he ever took from this place,'' said Golesh, who attended the first Celebration of Life for Abdur-Rahim on Sunday in Atlanta (USF will hold a similar event for the public on Saturday, 11 a.m., at the Yuengling Center).

"It's what you want your players to be. It's what you want your coaches to be. We're evaluated on winning games — and I understand that — but I believe we're in the business of molding young people. Amir won a lot of games, but his greatest impact was the influence he had on all people. The continual message was elite coach, elite husband, elite father, elite human being.''

Golesh said he found a kindred spirit in Abdur-Rahim. They were hired about three months apart and found themselves undergoing similar tasks — rebuilding teams from the ground up, changing a program's culture and finding ways to succeed in the modern landscape of college athletics.

Golesh said he was fascinated by Abdur-Rahim's four seasons at Kennesaw State University, where the team went from one victory to a conference championship and NCAA Tournament bid during that span.

"I think it started with the day Amir got hired,'' Golesh said. "I could say, 'Man, I've got two or three months (at USF) under my belt, living in a hotel. I can't give you much direction on anything other than our plan as we built this from the ground up.'

"He shared his plan to build it from the ground up. I think it paralleled our plan in a lot of ways, and we were similar in our thinking as to why we both took this job. There was a parallel in the reasons why he was doing it — super process-driven, super focused on building something sustainable that will last forever, rather than just trying to whip together a team and see what we can get done.''

Golesh said he constantly traded notes with Abdur-Rahim on subjects such as the transfer portal and NIL (name, image and likeness), along with the future issue of revenue sharing. They talked about leadership, dealing with success and handling player discipline.

"He had just gone through four years at Kennesaw State, starting from the bottom and building it into a conference champion, so I was always picking his brain,'' Golesh said. "I can't tell you the amount of conversations we had at night driving home. I'd say, 'Here's what happened today' … or … 'What do you think after a loss or a win?'

"Last year, we were four games in, sitting at 2-2 in my first year. He sent me the longest text you could ever imagine. 'It's Year One. Here's where you are. Here's where you got to get. Here's what happens in Year Two, Year Three, Year Four.' He basically told me, 'Just stay the course.' I learned so much from him.''

As the Bulls prepare for FAU, Golesh said Abdur-Rahim — a basketball coach — will be on everyone's mind.

"Amir was a sounding board, a colleague, a really good friend,'' Golesh said. "He's one of the most genuine, real people in our profession that I've ever been around.

"He loved our program and was at a lot of practices. He got to know our players and our players fell in love with him — the energy, the passion and the human being that he was. He touched so many people in a positive manner — myself and our football staff included. … I hope at some point, whenever my time comes, that I can be talked about as half the man that Amir was in terms of the legacy that he left.''

–#GoBulls–