Is there another football program in the country like ours?

[Bulls 8_va]

One word...NO!!!

We are in a class all our own.  Our fanbase isnt there but it is growing rapidly because of the football teams success.  AND we have the opportunity to grow our fanbase EXTREMELY quick and faster than a FIU/FAU because USF simply has more tradition and history.  Plus, they are more like night schools compared to us.  There are enough people associated with USF to eventually have a "USF Nation".  Everywhere I go, I meet someone who went or knows about USF.  We aren't the 9th largest University in the Country for nothing.

GO BULLS!!!

[Joe]

Boise State is the closest. They were a community college that almost shut down 30 years ago.

Unlike us, Boise State might have peaked simply because of conference affiliation.

[smazza]

usf came around the right time(20 years too late)

[Bullschmutz]

Boise State is the closest. They were a community college that almost shut down 30 years ago.

Unlike us, Boise State might have peaked simply because of conference affiliation.

I'm thinking they'd be a good fit in the Pac-10 but the Pac-10 isn't really all that down with change.

[Bullpride08]

Let's not confuse long-term dislike with short-term spats.

Yeah, Tuberville didn't vote for USF in his top 25 right away... but he got on the bandwagon pretty quickly when USF kept winning. Besides, we'll probably never play them again. So let's just remember Auburn as the site of our greatest victory to date. Lord knows Florida and Alabama haven't done much winning against the ol' War Eagles lately.  >

USF's biggest detractor, and for the longest time, has got to be UCF. They whined, cried, and stomped their little feet when we wouldn't play them (as early as 1997, when they were a I-A program and we were losing home games to Drake). Then they pretended they didn't know or care who we were, with remarks like George O'Leary's "what conference are they in?" crack. Then they made excuse after excuse after excuse when we stomped them into the ground. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

As for allies... USF should be tremendously thankful not just to Louisville and Pittsburgh, who were mentioned earlier, but the entire Big East Conference (including the non-football schools). We've been treated with far more respect and fairness than we ever got in C-USA -- a league of schools that had far less reason to look down their noses at us. Funny how that works. We've lost a lot of games in men's basketball, but no Big East school has ever said we didn't deserve to be in the conference. And I am thankful for that. Our 15 conference-mates seem to recognize our overall worth, and accept us. And that's a good feeling. Every one of us should be proud to be associated with the schools of the Big East, in both academics and athletics.

To speak further of Louisville... Tom Jurich's support of USF is a total 180 for those of us old enough to remember the pre-football days at USF (which isn't all that long ago). Every year Denny Crum would bring a ranked basketball team to lowly USF, stomp us into the ground, complain about our fans, and generally adopt the attitude that we didn't deserve to breathe their air. If you'd told any USF fan 15 years ago that Louisville would be one of USF's biggest supporters in matters of conference realignment, they'd have thought you were crazy.

Over the last ten years, we've earned the respect of a lot of good universities. Even if those are only the other 15 Big East universities, it's still a monumental step up from where we were in the early 90s. Yeah, we've got detractors, but screw them. For the most part they're just jealous. Especially UCF.

Good stuff Gary, but I do have it on good authority that very early on it was UCF who turned us down for games in our very beginnings searching for a 1-A opponent or two.  Their apathy and arrogance toward us started the issue by the time they were interested in scheduling us it was like 99 thru 2002, and by that time we got admitted into C-USA, beat Pitt, and generally had no servicable use for them anymore.  Playing them no longer served a purpose, and they wanted to play us because the team they snubbed their noses at in 96-98 turned out to be rising faster and quicker and playing us might help defuse.

From a football standpoint USF really hasn't made many bad decisions since it's inception and truly has had great fan support when you look at how it could go in reverse (see fan support pre 2007 for UCF, FAU, FIU, and Troy). 

[CowbellBandit]

Very young team in a BCS conference, evenly matched within the conference, and able to play with anyone in the country (theoretically?)

No one else comes to mind...

[GarySJ]

I do have it on good authority that very early on it was UCF who turned us down for games in our very beginnings searching for a 1-A opponent or two.

Well, the Orlando Sentinel said "UCF offered the Bulls an immediate game, but Leavitt refused, probably wisely" in an article about USF just before the inaugural 1997 season. The four-game series was announced in 2003, I think, and UCF spent a good year or two squawking about it in the media before then. That doesn't leave much of a window for them to have turned us away.

[Bullpride08]

I do have it on good authority that very early on it was UCF who turned us down for games in our very beginnings searching for a 1-A opponent or two.

Well, the Orlando Sentinel said "UCF offered the Bulls an immediate game, but Leavitt refused, probably wisely" in an article about USF just before the inaugural 1997 season. The four-game series was announced in 2003, I think, and UCF spent a good year or two squawking about it in the media before then. That doesn't leave much of a window for them to have turned us away.

It's been mentioned before at USF- by people that would know.  We asked them in 1997-98, trying to line-up our first 1-A game, and were turned down- that is of course unless you think SDST was our first, and most desired 1-A opposition. 

BTW, the sentinel version would seem a bit confusing considering in 97 UCF jumped to 1-A, and because they jumped as an independent there schedule was relatively full for those first couple of years.  Why in the world would they conceivably want to offer a game to a FL school in 1997, a school that was brand new and who's football might be atrocious on a Division I level.  Especially when McDowell and crew didn't even want to acknowledge us.

The paper you are citing, the same paper that lied about certain phone calls that were made to USF in reference to said game, and the same paper that called us 'chickiepoos' when we had no reasonable reason to schedule the game.  The game, the paper is probably now looking at UCF about and going "Oh, sorry about inciting them" given the trouncing we've provided them over, and over again.