USF's Back to the Future
USF must relive an era it skipped
USF Football skipped an era. Many of us missed it because it seemed like one we didn’t need. We were the youngest program in the BCS and we we’re dropping West Virginia and Florida State left and right. We were hot shit.
But… it wasn’t quite right. Not a single championship trophy was hauled back to the Selmon Center. Success never seemed to extend beyond a mobile quarterback with moxie. We went from Division FCS in 1997 to FBS Conference USA in 2003. Before we had our feet under us, we moved to the Big East in 2005. We skipped the program building years and used our great right hook to knock out some heavyweights. But we never managed to capture the belt ourselves…
Its time to go back to reclaim that missing era - because without it there might not be much of a future.
For USF it’s time to take a step back - back to a conference we might not love, but one that can recapture our lost years and get us to the future we want. Quite frankly, its time for USF to be the big dog in the room. USF could always bring together the athletes to compete with anyone on a given day, when it had a competent coach - but its never had the facilities, administrative competency, or resources to be a true big dog in any conference. Its time to go back and win the championships and build a winning program - time to take the program building steps USF somehow skipped.
USF enters the new American Athletic Conference as a premier brand with new facilities and an innovative stadium on the way. Leadership from the top of the university finally seems to understand the need for investment and the importance of football to our identity. And to top it off we have an exciting young offensive minded coach who just landed a recruit with 10 power 5 offers.
The best part of this little trip back in time… It SHOULD result in some much needed happiness for Bulls Nation. The last three years have been absolutely abysmal. Pathetic to a point I didn’t think we could reach. But now its time to win games and compete for conference championships. It might be in a conference fewer people are watching, but we earned our spot by failing our way into this new AAC.
Winning tends to go down smoother than losing. No more UCF or Cincinnati - who don’t get it twisted - ran circles around USF on the field, under the headset, and in the athletics administration department for a decade. Houston is also gone, who I guess just existed in Houston, but did have a stadium and hired better coaches than USF. While the conference by no means is a cake walk, some of these programs are aggressively chasing success, USF has every advantage you could ask for.
In short… no more excuses. USF Football is completely out of excuses to fail. Our AD had a mulligan of a head coaching hire, we have a (very nice) football practice facility and a solid locker room, we are located in a recruiting paradise, and have NIL in place. The competition is no longer a step above. Did I mention we have the best uniform USF has ever had? We finally dress the part of a winner.
It’s time to win. It’s time to enjoy USF Football. It’s time to take the belt and be the champ! Because if Mike Kelly and Coach Golesh can’t win in this era we have traveled back to - USF Football as we remembered it, and what we envision it to be is gone. I don’t mean that as hyperbole. We have said for the last two coaching cycles that it’s now or never… Well folks… this time it is. We either catch one of these last tickets to the P5 or we are Toledo… We are Miami of Ohio… We are Ball State… We are Eastern Michigan. And it aint coming back from that… Not ever.
If we want any chance of avoiding this, we need to go back and reclaim the past we skipped over to get us to the future we want…
Notes:
Enjoy the Spring Game… Do not get swooned by it. This could take a year or two to build. We won’t know what we have until it’s on the field against WKU.
Love this one (since were going back in time and all):
