While Alex Golesh tried to continue building his roster and keep players from entering the transfer portal at his new job as the head coach at Auburn, his former team, USF, was playing in its bowl game on Wednesday night in Orlando, Fla.
For the 41-year-old Golesh, he had only one way to explain watching it.
“To be honest with you, Fozzy, it was a (explicit) feeling, man,” Golesh told ESPN’s Fozzy Whitaker and Peter Burns on Thursday. “If I’m telling you the truth, like, man, it sucked. My son kept calling every time something happened.”
Barrett, Golesh’s son, was extremely irate after De’Shawn Rucker, who the coach said is basically like a big brother to his son, was ejected from the game due to a targeting penalty.
“He actually texted me, ‘We should let the kids play,’” Golesh said.
The new Auburn coach discussed how strange it was not to have any control over the game and not being able to give Rucker a hug after the penalty that made him miss the rest of the game. But, as he pointed out, it is part of the job he signed up for when he decided to leave the Bulls for the Tigers in late November.
Alex Golesh gets emotional while watching former team
“Those are my guys,” Golesh said. “I don’t think people realize how much time you invested in those kids and their lives… It was surreal. I don’t think I’ve ever had an emotion like that because you don’t have any control.”
In the end, Old Dominion got the best of Golesh’s old team in a 24-10 victory, ending the Bulls’ season at 9-4.
Golesh finished his tenure at USF with a 23-15 record, including 9-3 this season, with a massive victory over Florida in The Swamp in September. He signed a six-year deal with Auburn worth close to $44.3 million.