USF was fortunate, perhaps lucky to be in the position they were in in the first place with being such a young football program. A lot of things had to come together for it to happen so fast. Maybe it's part of the reason that the bottom fell out and the Bulls have had trouble recovering since. USF was never above playing UCF, just like the reverse is true now.
Everyone has bigger goals in mind but start by winning the American, or finishing above .500 in the Big East/American (hasn't been done since 2007)
I actually agree with you for the most part. Never felt we we above it, just that we were worried about trying to compete in a real conference with traditional programs and were not going all out in the marketing department to try to generate hype for a crappy game to try to finish in the middle of the pack of a terrible conference. We were indeed fortunate and the tables have turned.