Kedric Golston II has a very specific goal for his Tennessee career: he wants his own name to show up first.
That’s not a knock on the football family he came from. The freshman edge rusher is thankful for the coaching and background he’s gotten from his father, the Georgia All-SEC defensive tackle and 11-year NFL veteran. But when the same name belongs to a former pro, internet searches get complicated.
“It’s almost all my motivation, really,” Golston II said. “I’m just ready to have my own name. Like you search up Kedric Golston on the internet, he pops up first.
“I want my name to be up there first (and) I told him that a lot of times.”
The 6-foot-3, 243-pound Virginia native is already making some noise in Knoxville. After earning first-team reps at LEO in the Orange & White Game to close spring practice, Golston has kept building through the summer and into preseason camp. Tennessee is expected to lean on bigger defensive ends up front, but the need for pass-rush help gives him a real path to playing time in 2026.
“He’s a young guy really stepping up,” sophomore LEO Christian Gass said. “He’s not being young. Him and Hezekiah Harris, them two are guys who really stepped up a lot.”
Golston is the son of a player who started 30 games at Georgia, became the first Bulldogs defensive tackle to start his debut since 1994 and finished with 95 tackles for a career that included SEC championships on both ends. A sixth-round pick in the 2006 NFL Draft, the elder Golston played 11 seasons for Washington, posting 224 tackles in 142 games before retiring after two appearances in 2016.
That football background has mattered from the start. Kedric Golston II was coached first by his father as an assistant at Gonzaga College High School in Washington D.C. and then by him again as head coach at Stone Bridge High School over the last two seasons. Now he’s at Tennessee working under Rodney Garner, who also coached his father at Georgia.
That connection helped Tennessee in the recruiting battle. Golston chose the Vols over Rutgers and Virginia Tech, with Georgia also on the list. He had an official visit scheduled to Athens, but never took it.
The familiarity runs deep enough that the Tennessee staff already knew what kind of player and person it was getting. First-year LEOs coach Andrew Jackson said in spring practice that Golston has “all the tools” and was “going to be a great one” in time.
“He’s the son of a pro,” Jackson said early in preseason camp. “He’s known G since he was a little kid, the father-and-son relationship with his dad and he knows the game. Now it’s just getting stronger in the weight room, those kind of things, applying things on the field full speed.
“He’s got a tremendous skill set, but now it’s just growing up every day.”
For Golston, the transition to Garner’s demanding style hasn’t been much of an adjustment. His father’s coaching already had him familiar with the terminology, the bag drills and the hard-edged standard Tennessee uses in individual periods.
“I’ve heard the terminology,” Golston said. “Like my dad being coached by Coach G, Coach G probably still uses the same terminology from when he coached him back in the day. So I think just hearing it like, ‘Oh, when he says that, he means that,’ because I’ve done it before, so I think that helped me a little bit in the spring early on.”
He also wasn’t surprised by the tone.
“They’re tough,” he said. “They’re tough, but it’s all love. It’s all out of love and respect.
“They’re both going to tell you that they love you and everything, but it’s going to be hard coaching, they’re going to make you do it right.”
Even at home, the roles stay clear.
“When we get back home, it’s just, he’s my dad, it’s normal,” Golston said. “When we’re on the field, I don’t call him dad. It’s always ‘Coach’ and ‘Coach Golston.’”
The freshman says he’s also made noticeable gains physically. Weight was “always a hard thing for him” before arriving at Tennessee, and he said he was around 225-230 pounds at the end of his senior year.
After working with new Director of Football Sports Performance Derek Owings, he’s up to 243-245 pounds. Golston said the biggest change came through diet, not just lifting, with more protein, fruit and carbs.
On the field, he keeps the focus simple: stack good days.
“I think it starts on special teams first, and then going through defense, just stacking days on days,” Golston said. “They put me in with the ones, twos - whatever it is - just do my stuff, know my job and everything will take care of itself.”
That mindset carries over to his approach as a rusher. Golston says he’s comfortable converting speed to power and power back to speed, and he tries to make every move look the same before setting up counters. It’s the kind of detail that stands out for a freshman.
“Again, his dad is a pro, so he gets the business side, the details, the structure of this game,” Jackson said. “He’s also played in multiple positions in high school.
He’s played linebacker. He’s played on the edge.
He’s played in competitive high school programs, so his wealth of football knowledge is there.
“Now it’s just getting it to come out full speed all the time.”
Golston’s path to Tennessee has been shaped by the same people for a long time, and that’s part of what has him moving quickly. He’s comfortable with the coaching, comfortable with the language and comfortable with the standard. Now he’s trying to turn all of that into production - and maybe, eventually, a better search result.
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