Alex Golesh spent two seasons (2021 and 2022) as Tennessee’s offensive coordinator under Josh Heupel before leaving Rocky Top to take over as the head coach at USF.

After three seasons at USF, Golesh landed the head coaching job at Auburn earlier this offseason.

Golesh will return to Neyland Stadium in 2026 when Auburn visits for a matchup against Tennessee on October 3.

Alex Golesh says he may have given Josh Heupel too much credit publicly…but that’s not a slight

Golesh hasn’t been shy about praising Heupel over the last few years.

The first-year Auburn head coach, however, said this week that he may be giving Heupel too much credit publicly.

But it’s not because Golesh doesn’t think Heupel deserves the credit — it’s simply because Auburn has to recruit against Tennessee now.

Golesh, who was also with Heupel for one season at UCF (2020), made the comment this week during a conversation on the Regions Bank YouTube Channel where he discussed Heupel’s influence on him as a play caller.

“Coach Heup, and I give him a lot of credit — I have publicly I feel like maybe too much,” said Golesh when asked who the biggest influence on him as a play caller has been. “We recruit against those cats all the time, but I’m always going to give credit where credit is due. Josh, through the UCF time, the process he forced you to have throughout the week was unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of. In meetings, it was checklist item one to checklist two to checklist three to checklist four. And even going to the Tennessee time, the conversations we would have just sitting there: ‘In this situation, what are you doing?’

“It forced you to build your process through his questions. … I remember a phone call, it was a late game on a Saturday, and I don’t even remember what game it was. I want to say maybe Missouri. [Heupel] calls and I’m in my hotel working through games in my office. He calls and is like, ‘Middle of the field, four yard line, it’s third-and-four.’ I’m like, ‘Man, like that hadn’t come up in my mock games.’ … Anyway, as he’s going through his process, he’s like, ‘You don’t have an answer.’ But it wasn’t like a gotcha moment. It was something he just came up with and was like, ‘Man, I think we’re jacked.’ Three minutes later, I had my middle of field call on third-and-four. And to be honest with you, it didn’t come up in the game, but [we had it if we needed it].”

“The ability to adjust, and that’s where I say he forced you to have answers for everything. I think I grew so tremendously in my time there, not just as a play caller, but as a head coach,” added Golesh of his time with Heupel.

The whole interview with Golesh is a great watch — especially his comments on Heupel (which he goes more in depth on in the video).

It’s always cool to get a behind-the-scenes look at the actual process of game planning. It’s also interesting to hear Golesh talk extensively about the way Heupel influenced him as a play caller.