Alex Golesh did not say anything that is not true about South Florida and the Bulls’ ability to win a national championship in college football. However, the first-year head coach at Auburn forgot to consider the most important pieces of his current roster for 2026.
The offense might as well be USF West…
There is a massive talent gap between college football programs in the AAC and SEC, which prevents the smaller schools from winning a national title. But what if most of the players are the same? We’ll see!
Alex Golesh does not think USF can win a national championship.
Golesh, the former right-hand man to Josh Heupel at UCF and Tennessee, got his first opportunity as a head coach in college football at the University of South Florida in December of 2022. He inherited a program that had gone 4-29 over the previous three seasons and led an instant turnaround.
The Bulls went 7-6 with back-to-back bowl wins in 2023 and 2024. It was a huge improvement over the previous tenure. USF even hung close with No. 10 Alabama during Nick Saban’s last year with the Tide.
This past season was even better. USF finished at 9-3 with a win over No. 13 Florida in The Swamp.
Auburn, after a lengthy coaching search that did not yield its top options, decided to chase the same turnaround. Golesh was hired to lead the Tigers in November. He will try to replicate the same success he had in Tampa with a program that has not finished with a winning record since 2020. Time will tell.
But here’s the thing.
Alex Golesh was actually going to stay at South Florida until he got the call from Auburn. He told Blake Toppmeyer of USA Today that he turned down multiple job offers from other schools before the Tigers presented him with an opportunity he could not refuse.
“Fifteen minutes before I took this one, and turned down some other ones, it was, ‘(Expletive) it, we’re just staying here. I’m good. We’re good. We’re great.’”
It came down to the ultimate goal of winning a national championship.
“I felt like you could win a national title here. Where, at South Florida, I think you and everybody else knows you never were going to get there.”
He’s not wrong… In the modern era of college football, a Group of Six program does not stand a chance of winning four-straight games against the top programs from the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and SEC. It could happen if every domino was to fall the right way but that is very unlikely. The disparity gap is too large.
Auburn’s offense is South Florida West.
Even if Alex Golesh said what everybody else was already thinking, it does not reflect well on his current roster for 2026. Auburn took 13 players from USF in the transfer portal. Most of them were on offense.
That list includes: quarterback Byrum Brown, running back Nykahi Davenport, tight end Jonathan Echols, center Cole Best, guard Cole Skinner and wide receives Keshaun Singleton Jeremiah Koger, Chas Nimrod, Christian Neptune and Kory Pettigrew. They are all going to play an important role for the Tigers.
If that is the case, and South Florida could not win a national title, what does that say about Auburn? Especially considering that they both have the same number of College Football Playoff appearances.
I understand the difference. G6 players often transfer up and find success on the next level. The defense on the Plains will look completely different than the defense in Tampa. There is a nuance to this. I get it.
But with that being said, there is no position more important than quarterback. If Brown could not lead his team to a national championship with the schedule at USF, who is to say he can do so in the SEC?
College football fans jokingly refer to Auburn as USF West and they have every reason to do so. A large portion of the Tigers’ offense in 2026 will resemble the Bulls’ offense from 2025.
Maybe this won’t be the year that Golesh gets his ring, that’s fine. It would be very funny if he said what he said about his former school and Brian Hartline makes the College Football Playoff as his successor at USF while Auburn fails to make the Playoff in 2/3/4 years and has to fire its head coach.