That's definitely the best scenario I see. What worries me, though, is stuff like the quotes from Nick Saban about there eventually being just 60-70 "real" FBS schools, a bunch of irrelevant ones that are background noise and largely don't play the big dogs, and then FCS. In essence, there'd be 1A, 1AA (us), and 1AAA (what used to be 1AA). In that case, it's pretty much relegation and I question whether we could build a healthy fan base in that situation. But, again, it is what it is. I do like the basketball side of it, though.
I think we're worrying a little bit too much about our attendance numbers. The doom and gloom predictions of 20k at USF games won't happen unless we remain a bad team.
Look at ECU and UCF. They might not be big time schools, but as long as they're successful, they've drawn 30k to 40k a game.
We are not at the point of an Alabama or a Florida where we can draw 90k fans to a game, and we most certainly won't be for a while. Heck, even Miami fans are a pretty fair-weather bunch-at the USF-Miami game earlier this year I'd say the stadium was about 60/40 Miami at kickoff and the stadium was barely half full.
We regularly draw 40k a year so long as we're successful. I can't see that changing much as long as we put in 7-8 win seasons, because we're a low cost alternative to Bucs games and we will seemingly remain that way for the foreseeable future unless we get more big name opponents (such as a Miami or FSU) in town. It'll take winning the conference in the ACC (or getting in a BCS game next year) to get over the 45k to 50k hump.