For Brian Hartline, who will be officially announced as South Florida’s new coach Monday, the job isn’t about picking up the pieces, starting over. His job will be to build on the foundation Alex Golish has laid down.
Hartline appears to be a solid hire. He is highly regarded as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator and considered an outstanding recruiter. He has an impressive pedigree as a player, first at Ohio State and then in the NFL.
His approach will no doubt be different from Golishes; it is likely to be less intense because Hartline appears more confident than Golish, who seemed to be driven, in large part, by a need to prove himself.
The unexpected end of the Golish era was a sharp contrast from its beginnings. At least publicly, it was somewhat messy and tumultuous, a bit out of control. And that was totally different from the way Golish ran his program, where everything seemed precisely planned and well thought out with definite goals in mind.
It appears that Golish was more open with the USF administration, which seemed to know he had gotten some offers and was considering them, than he was with the media and the USF fan base.
Even as more and more reports linking him to other jobs surfaced, Golish continued to insist he wasn’t seeking other opportunities, that he was happy at USF and that he hadn’t completed his rebuild yet. All of that was undoubtedly true.
It was what he didn’t say that was troubling. While he said he wasn’t seeking other jobs, he didn’t say he wouldn’t consider other offers. And all the talk about being happy in Tampa and having all the resources he needed to build a nationally relevant program at USF, which gave the impression he wasn’t going to leave, was misleading at best and dishonest at worst.
And so Golesh has packed up and headed to Auburn, a step up from USF but a gamble on his part. In many ways, Auburn is much like Tennessee, where Golesh was before he came to USF. Both schools have a rich SEC history and are trying to reclaim it. This is particularly true of Auburn, which has struggled to reach the .500 mark over the last several seasons.
At USF, Golesh pretty much had a straight line to football success. The Bulls have made and are making sizable investments in new facilities and a stadium. They plan to spend the full $20.5 million allotted to schools in recent court settlements on players, the only Group of 5 school to do so.
If all goes well, meaning primarily if it can bring in enough money to pay for the stadium, USF will have an advantage virtually every year as far as being the Group of 5 representative in the College Football Playoffs.
In contrast, Auburn has some huge hurdles to overcome just to be competitive in the SEC, and even being competitive is no guarantee you will get to the championship game or the playoffs.
So Hartline takes over USF at a time when the school seems ready to break out of the American, to establish itself as a mid-major, not quite up to Power 4 standards but a notch above everybody in the Group of 5. And that’s a very advantageous position to be in.
“Brian Hartline was our clear-cut first choice to lead our football program into the most exciting era in program history and I am fired up to have him leading the Bulls,” Rob Higgins, CEO of Athletics, said in a USF press release.
“A relentless recruiter, outstanding developer of talent and a gritty competitor, he comes from a championship background and is obsessed with instilling championship excellence in his players and teams. He is ready to lead our program to the next level,” Higgins said.
And Hartline is off to a good start. Even with Golesh gone, USF’s recruiting class pretty much held together on early signing day. According to rivals.com, the Bulls signed the 10th best class among all Group of 5 teams and the third best in the American. And as yet, we have not heard anything about a mass exodus of players via the transfer portal.
“Coach Brian Hartline is a proven winner who has experienced success at the highest level,” Will Weatherford, USF Board of Trustees chair, commented, also in the press release. Weatherford was the driving force behind getting a stadium built and most of the other infrastructure improvements in USF’s athletic facilities.
“He (Hartline) shares our vision for winning championships, developing student-athletes and providing them with a world-class experience and positioning our university on the national stage,” Weatherford added.
So USF is ready to roll. Let the games begin.