College football coaches are accustomed to watching film, evaluating, scouting and searching for an answer to those eternal questions:
Why? What?
Why aren't we better at running the ball? What changes do we need in our offensive line and backfield personnel?
Why can't our defense get off the field at critical moments? What can we do schematically to help get those third-down stops?
With meaningful game-days still months away, it's now time to focus on the rites of winter, picking apart last season's results, while dissecting the strategy and execution. USF head coach Alex Golesh, coming off a 7-6 season and a Hawaii Bowl victory, has spent the offseason delving deep into big-picture questions about every aspect of his program.
Make no mistake: The Bulls have come a looooong way since the 1-11 season of 2022, achieving respectability in the American Athletic Conference, establishing a fleet of program records with the Golesh go-go offense and twice registering feel-good bowl-game triumphs. Golesh's 14 wins in his first two seasons are the second-most of any USF coach. He is the first to win bowls games in their first two seasons.
But Golesh, naturally, wants more as he prepares for the start of spring-football drills on March 25.
"When you look at what we were as a team a year ago, when we were good, we were really good, like when we played with the top 25 programs (on USF's schedule),'' Golesh said. "But when we were bad, we were bad.
"You look at the Navy game, the Memphis game, the Tulane game, the Rice game and the second half of the Miami game and it's like, 'Man, where is the breaking point? Why the inconsistency?' It's not huge, but that gap is monumentally hard to close.''
As Golesh has mentioned before, the Bulls have closed the gap from a struggling program to a postseason team. The final leg of the relay is reaching AAC championship status — and that might be the most difficult journey of them all.
"Some of it (fixes) is schematic and those are things that we as coaches make a lot of money to make sure that we fix,'' Golesh said. "But a lot of it is simply the expectation to win and what actually goes into it. It's continuing to perfect your process. I think we're getting close to a point in our program where we expect to win every week.
"How we go about our business daily is the hardest part. I used to talk to Amir (Abdur-Rahim, USF men's basketball coach in 2023-24) on how you close that gap. Because he truly believed it was all mental. I truly believe a large chunk of it is mental, along with the grind of what a season is and the ability to be consistent through ups and downs, through injuries.''
The research Golesh and his staff conduct will produce the points of emphasis for spring football, which gets underway March 25 and culminates with the Spring Game April 26.
"I feel like we've got answers, and I feel like we're ready to go do it,'' Golesh said. "I think we've got a really good plan to go attack. But as it says on the wall in our staff room, 'A Good Plan Executed Poorly Is A Bad Plan.' So, no question, we have to properly execute our plan.''
The Bulls have some excellent building blocks.
Quarterback Byrum Brown, who was on the field briefly during the Hawaii Bowl, was injured in the fifth game of the 2024 campaign and missed the remainder of the regular season. But now the player that posted just the program's second 4,000-total yard season in 2023 is back to compete against Bryce Archie, who started eight consecutive games in Brown's absence and went 5-3, including a bowl game victory.
All-time leading receiver Sean Atkins has departed after a distinguished career but uber-talented junior Keshaun Singleton (26 catches, 408 yards, three touchdowns) seems ready to pick up the slack, and the Bulls welcome the return of Naiem Simmons (39 catches for 637 yards in 2023) and Jaden Alexis (23 catches for 280 yards in 2023) from injury. USF added playmakers at wideout in the recent recruiting cycle, including Tennessee transfer Chas Nimrod.
Meanwhile, running back Cartevious Norton, a transfer from Charlotte with 31 games of college experience and over 1,100 yards rushing, will be counted upon in a backfield that must replace Kelley Joiner, Nay'Quan Wright and Ta'Ron Keith.
Offensive line appears to be a position of strength. The Bulls return sixth-year players Zane Herring, Derek Bowman and Mike Lofton with a combined 67 career starts as well as center Cole Best, a 10-game starter last season, and guard Jack Wilty, a nine-game starter. There's depth across the board with several additions, including transfer offensive tackle Connor McLaughlin, a Jesuit High School product and Stanford University starter who wanted to play before family members in his final college season.
There's also good news on defense. Linebacker Jhalyn Shuler (who led the Bulls in tackles in 2023), who appeared to be done after 2024, has been granted an additional year of eligibility and will continue to team with great friend Mac Harris (who led USF in tackles last year) to form a tandem with All-AAC potential.
On the defensive line, two newcomers to watch are defensive tackle Josh Celiscar, a Texas A&M transfer who once served as team captain at UCF, and defensive tackle Dre Butler, a transfer from Charlotte who was the nation's No. 1-ranked junior-college prospect in 2020. They join returning starters Bernard Gooden and Rico Watson III.
Meanwhile, the Bulls return four starters in the secondary in De'Shawn Rucker, Kajuan Banks, Tavin Ward and Brent Austin and added veteran transfers in Jonas Duclona (Wisconsin) and Boogsie Silvera (McNeese State) that may have the opportunity to contribute immediately.
The talent level and program depth has reached an all-time high during Golesh's tenure.
Now it's a matter of executing the plan.
Golesh said the next seven months will be "the hardest that this program has gone through.''
"I think the standards and the expectations have been laid within our program,'' Golesh said. "When I sat down and really evaluated it, if you look at it, getting to the point we've gotten to is really hard. Getting to this next point of competing for a conference championship, it's incrementally harder, but the gap is not huge.
"I'm excited, energized, juiced-up. It's a really, really cool time to be a USF Bull. It's a really cool time in our program, and we've got to do everything we can to take the next step.''
–#GoBulls–
