In the second week of September, South Florida went into a hostile Southeastern Conference environment and emerged with a win.
Quarterback Matt Grothe hit receiver Jessie Hester Jr. for a 14-yard touchdown, clinching the program’s signature victory — a 26-23 overtime triumph against then-No. 17 Auburn.
The Bulls put themselves in the national spotlight for the first time in their six-year FBS history when they became the fastest upstart to earn a spot in the Associated Press poll, debuting at No. 23.
Four games later, South Florida was 6-0 and ranked No. 2 in the first edition of the 2007 BCS rankings. Florida was ranked No. 15 in the same poll, and Miami and Florida State were nowhere to be found.
Though they finished the season unranked after suffering a fourth loss in their bowl game, the Bulls added Tampa to the map of college football schools in the state of Florida.
“I’m not surprised by any of the success,” said UF defensive line coach Dan McCarney, who held the same position at USF in 2007. “I was there. I saw it. I saw the talent, 98 percent of that team is from the state of Florida. We all know the talent that’s in this state, and it’s a team and a program to be reckoned with every Saturday this season, no matter’s who’s playing them.”
The Bulls will again try to beat an SEC school on the road in the second week of September and put their names in the same sentence as their intrastate BCS conference peers, something they have had mixed results at so far.
Miami has defeated USF both times the schools have played, but the Bulls are 11-0 in all other in-state contests. Most of those wins came against teams outside the Big Three, but its most recent victory came against Florida State in Tallahassee. In the first-ever meeting between the two schools, freshman quarterback B.J. Daniels, a four-star recruit out of Tallahassee, led the Bulls to a 17-7 road victory. The Seminoles amassed only 19 rushing yards, and coach Bobby Bowden admitted to being caught off guard by the Bulls’ potency.
‘’The way we got beat up on offense, I didn’t know we could get beat up like that,’’ Bowden said after the game. ‘’They did everything faster than I thought.’’
With UF and USF also meeting for the first time Saturday, Florida’s coaching staff is using Bowden and FSU’s surprise as a cautionary tale.
“They went up and completely dominated that game, so we don’t have to fabricate something fake about the talent and the program and the respect we have for them,” McCarney said. “This is an outstanding football team coming in here, and we’re going to have to play a lot better than we did last week [against Miami (Ohio)].”
A 1-11 MAC team, USF is not.
FSU learned that first hand, as Daniels threw for two touchdowns against the Seminoles. Daniels is the face of a young squad that has lost most of the key contributors from the 2007 season, and he perfectly represents the type of player South Florida builds its team around. The 6-foot-1, 203-pound dual-threat quarterback was a Florida kid with plenty of talent overlooked by the state’s powerhouse programs.
UF recruiting coordinator and running backs coach Stan Drayton said the Gators haven’t had a problem losing recruits to the Bulls. But South Florida does a good job holding onto players from Hillsborough County, such as four-star cornerback Terrence Mitchell, who went to Hillsborough High and chose USF instead of Miami and FSU.
“Traditionally, they’re a very aggressive recruiting staff,” Drayton said. “They do a great job there in their back yard, down in Hillsborough County, which has been a hotbed for us as well. So when you come across those guys they have an attraction to some of those home bodies down there. We bump heads with them a little bit, not a whole lot, but on certain kids.”
UF center Mike Pouncey went to Lakeland High and lived about 20 minutes from USF’s campus, but he never considered the school among the state’s elite when he was in high school.
“I was recruited by them, but there was never a thought in my mind to go there,” Pouncey said. “I wanted to go to a big-time program.”
Heading into their 14th season, the Bulls have never won the Big East Conference title or finished with more than nine wins. For all the respect the Gators have shown them this week, it would be hard to call the Bulls “big-time” in the sense Pouncey meant.
But new coach Skip Holtz, the second coach in school history, will be charged with taking the team to that level. It’s respectable how far the Bulls have come in such a short time, but it will take wins against FSU, Florida and Miami to eventually turn the Big Three into the Big Four.
As for how close USF is to making that leap, it’s a matter of perspective.
“To the people at Florida, it would be that extreme if we were to win, yes,” Holtz said earlier this week. “From where we want to build this program, for the people on the inside, no, it wouldn’t be that extreme. That’s where we have the expectation level. Are we there yet? That’s why we’re playing the game. We’ll see.”
USF will take the field as more than a two-touchdown underdog fighting to be included in the conversation with their neighbors to the north, east and south.
For the Gators, Saturday will be just another non-conference game against a team hungry to prove it belongs against a top-10 foe.
“I think it’s more that they want us a lot, a lot,” UF senior Ahmad Black said. “They feel like if they can come in and beat us, they can say they beat one of the elite teams, and it’s our job to get focused and be ready to take their best shot.”
If USF can pull off the upset, Bulls fans will party like its 2007, when boastful supporters pointed to their lofty BCS ranking and claimed the fledgling program from Tampa was now the best team in the state.
“To be considered the best, you have to beat all the teams in Florida,” Black said. “So without beating us, they can’t be considered the best.”
If the Bulls come away with a victory, a 1-0 record will be enough for their fans to say the same thing about UF and FSU.
