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The One That Walked On: Bishop, Golesh and a Grudge Where Everybody Won

Tennessee running back DeSean Bishop, a former walk-on, and Auburn coach Alex Golesh in a Gridiron Gumbo SEC featured image

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Tennessee’s former walk-on ran for 220 yards against the coach he says helped keep him off scholarship. Two weeks later, on the same Saturday, both men pulled off signature wins.

By T-Rohn, Gridiron Gumbo · Posted Oct. 21, 2026

CONFIRMED: results and records per AP/ESPN. REPORTED: details credited to single outlets in text.

Down in Cajun country, we’ve got a rule about fishing: never brag about the one that got away, because somebody at the bait shop knows the real story.

Alex Golesh doesn’t have that luxury. The one that got away from him grew up in Knoxville, carries the ball for Tennessee, and has started telling the whole bait shop about it.

Everybody covered the games. We’re covering the grudge, and how it turned into the SEC’s strangest win-win.

Some folks hold grudges. Some folks hold press conferences. DeSean Bishop held the football 34 times.

The Kid From Karns

Bishop was no unknown. At Karns High School in Knoxville, he ran for 8,347 yards, second-most in Tennessee high school history, and scored 102 rushing touchdowns, third-most, per the TSSAA record book as cited by 247Sports. He also won back-to-back Class 5A Mr. Football awards.

Tennessee did offer him, in June 2021, right after he showed out at a Vols camp. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported it was his first Power 5 offer and that he was “first in line for every drill.”

Michigan State, Purdue and Virginia Tech were his only other Power 5 offers, and people close to him pushed him toward a Group of 5 scholarship, according to 247Sports.

He committed to Coastal Carolina in July 2022. When coach Jamey Chadwell left for Liberty, Bishop reopened his recruitment that December and took an official visit to Appalachian State.

Then he bet on himself, picking a walk-on spot with his hometown Vols over a Group of 5 scholarship. “There was just something in me that always thought I was bigger than that,” he told 247Sports.

He walked on in 2023, spent two seasons without a scholarship and was put on one before 2025, per 247Sports. Then he made second-team All-SEC with 1,076 yards and 16 touchdowns, according to A to Z Sports.

The best part? Bishop said at SEC Media Days he didn’t even know it was a walk-on spot at first. “Tennessee came knocking on the door and gave me the opportunity to walk on there,” he said, per A to Z Sports. “And honestly, it’s funny because I didn’t realize it was to walk on when I got there.”

Cher, I once showed up to a crawfish boil thinking I was a guest and found out I was the help. I know the feeling.

Two Sides of the Same Pot

Who was Tennessee’s offensive coordinator during Bishop’s recruitment? Alex Golesh, who ran the Vols offense in 2021 and 2022, according to Auburn’s official bio. His 2022 offense led the country in scoring at 47.3 points a game.

So Golesh was on staff from the June 2021 offer through Bishop’s senior season. South Florida hired him in December 2022, the same month Bishop reopened his recruitment, so Golesh was in Tampa by the time Bishop walked on. He coached USF from 2023 through 2025, and Auburn hired him on Nov. 30, 2025.

There are two versions of why Bishop walked on, and we’re serving both bowls.

Tennessee coach Josh Heupel gave his at SEC Media Days in July. “His offers, we didn’t feel like, necessarily matched what his potential skill level was,” Heupel said, adding that “at that time, we were limited in some of the roster spots that we were able to have with some of the things that we inherited from the previous staff,” per A to Z Sports.

Bishop’s version came out after the Oct. 3 game. We’ll get there.

So it may have been roster math, not a talent judgment. But a man doesn’t need the whole recipe to remember who was standing at the stove.

Oct. 3: The Receipt

Auburn came to Knoxville on Oct. 3, and Bishop ran like the gumbo was getting cold.

He carried 34 times for 220 yards and three touchdowns (25, 44 and 5 yards), all career highs, in a 24-14 Tennessee win in front of 101,915, according to Tennessee Athletics.

The 220 yards rank 12th on Tennessee’s single-game list. They were also the most anyone had run for against Auburn since Alabama’s Derrick Henry put up 220-plus on Nov. 28, 2015.

Derrick Henry, y’all. That’s the company a grudge keeps.

After the game, Bishop didn’t tiptoe. “I’m not going to lie, I’m going to keep it real – like this game was very personal from just the mindset of Golesh, he was one of the reasons I was a walk-on at the University of Tennessee,” he said, per 247Sports. (FanSided’s Fly War Eagle printed a shorter version: “Golesh was a big reason I was a walk-on.”)

Then he did the most Tennessee-boy thing possible: he thanked the man, sort of. “But in a sense, it was really a blessing in disguise,” Bishop said, per 247Sports.

Half thank-you note, half receipt. Classiest shot fired in the SEC all year.

Golesh didn’t take the bait. Fly War Eagle reported he didn’t respond to Bishop’s comments and talked only about his defense: “The missed tackles came from not getting a push up front and missing in the gap opportunities.”

Smart man. When a fella just ran for 220 on you, you nod and go watch film.

Oct. 17: Everybody Eats

Auburn was 3-2 after that loss, with a bye week coming. That’s usually when the message boards light the torches.

Instead, Golesh’s team went to Athens on Oct. 17 and beat No. 1 Georgia 27-24.

Auburn scored 24 straight points after falling behind 14-0, per Auburn Athletics. Georgia tied it with 2:58 left. Then Cody Sigler forced a fumble, Sylvester Smith-Reed fell on it at the Auburn 44, and Alex McPherson hit a 34-yard field goal as time expired. Quarterback Byrum Brown ran 26 times for 115 yards, per the AP.

Auburn Athletics said it was the program’s first walk-off field goal in regulation since Wes Byrum’s kick beat Oregon for the national title after the 2010 season. It was also just the second time Auburn has won on the road against a No. 1 team, and the first time since 1994.

The AP noted Georgia’s 53-game win streak against unranked teams ended. Top-ranked teams had also won 93 straight home games against unranked opponents, dating to 2007.

Ninety-three straight. That streak outlasted every diet I’ve started since 2007.

“The thing I’m most proud of is that nobody flinched,” Golesh said, per Auburn Athletics. He told the AP: “We’re going to build Auburn back to where everybody wants it, one game at a time. Just hang with us.”

Meanwhile, back in Knoxville that same day, the former walk-on was doing it again.

Bishop carried 32 times for 159 yards and both Tennessee touchdowns, each from 5 yards out, in a 26-10 win over No. 6 Alabama, per Tennessee Athletics and the AP.

“You look back at the start of my journey and I was literally watching this game at home, and now I’m making the plays that make the difference for my team,” he said afterward, per All For Tennessee.

So on the same Saturday, the coach Bishop says helped keep him off scholarship beat the No. 1 team in America, and the former walk-on ran over No. 6. Nobody lost except Georgia and Alabama, and frankly, they can afford it.

Mais, that’s a split decision where both fighters go home with the belt.

The Punchline Writes Itself

Here’s what cracks me up. After all that, Auburn still isn’t ranked.

The Tigers got 61 points in Sunday’s AP poll, third among teams receiving votes, per NCAA.com. You beat No. 1 on the road with a walk-off kick, and the voters treat you like the cousin who showed up to the reunion without a dish. Tennessee, meanwhile, climbed to No. 11.

My Mississippi State Bulldogs sat at 30 points in that same poll. Sixty-one and no ranking? Cher, we’d frame that and ring a cowbell at it.

Bishop said it best: a blessing in disguise. If he’d taken the Appalachian State scholarship, he isn’t the hometown hero. If Tennessee had handed him a scholarship back then, maybe nobody’s writing this story.

Some grudges are like a good roux. They take time, they need constant stirring, and if you do it right, everybody at the table gets fed.

Up Next

Tennessee visits South Carolina on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (2:30 Central) on ESPN. Auburn hosts No. 18 LSU on the Plains at 11 a.m. Central on ABC.

Laissez les bons temps rouler, y’all. And if the local star wants a scholarship, maybe just give him one. It’s cheaper than 220 yards.

Sources

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