May of 1994 St Pete Times says "Bulls can't play top football"

[Greg Auman]

i traded e-mails with him today ... basically said he's glad to be wrong about usf on that count.

keep in mind, that's three years before their first game, a year before leavitt was hired, so there wasn't much to be underestimated in the first place ...

[Bulls Are We]

My Buccaneer season tickets used to belong to Hubert Mizell. 

True Story!

[Mission9]

And many would agree with him back them.

An amazing program WE have built !

Funny, an award winning writer and commentator (no I did not always agree with him) thought it improbable and we have a member on this board (an agent provocateur and contrarian) who thinks that USF should have been better.

[Mama_Bull]

i traded e-mails with him today ... basically said he's glad to be wrong about usf on that count.

keep in mind, that's three years before their first game, a year before leavitt was hired, so there wasn't much to be underestimated in the first place ...

BUt, Tampa at one time DID have a successful college football team, so that should have been some indication to him that USF, a public school with much more resources at its disposal, would stand a pretty good chance once it made the decision to go ahead with football.

Also, being in C-USA was a good vehicle for doing that, which UCF did not have. Thankfully, there were enough people at USF and in Tampa who had a vision of what was possible and they were able to overcome the negativity.

[RJFinancialAdvisorBull]

Thought you all would find this interesting.  Make sure and read the bold!  lol  GO BULLS!!

-Gurly

St. Petersburg Times

USF can't play top football

[CITY Edition]

St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg, Fla.

Author: HUBERT MIZELL

Date: May 22, 1994

It's not that I'm against the University of South Florida spending $5-million to create a football team. It's just that my slick-from-wear senses tell me to not hop a community bandwagon to shout "Yes!"

USF has big enrollment but not a big national reputation. Bulls people understandably hunger for a big-time ego fix. For universities in our state, big football comes to mind as a visibility vehicle.

Until now, men's basketball has been South Florida's prime athletic investment, but the bouncing Bulls are yet to escalate to the NCAA Final Four or worldly celebrity.

Football is a monster tease.

Plato, Curie, Edison and King have historically preached that it's good to be a dreamer, but USF's football inventors owe it to students, faculty, alumni, fans and taxpayers to fully consider major-college football reality.

Bulls football zealots, openly or not, surely imagine an eventual stadium smash in the standing-room-only league of Gainesville, Tallahassee, Tuscaloosa, Columbus and Lincoln.

Football's birth at USF is virtually assured. Five-million dollars is all but raised for the great ego chase. But I wonder, are Bulls financiers being realistic about where South Florida football can be by, say, the year 2020?

If the Bulls are crafty, nifty and lucky for 10 to 15 seasons, USF might approach the status and appeal of the football program at the University of Central Florida.

In Orlando, the Knights play a schedule all but devoid of major football names, drawing 15,000 on a good Saturday night. Just now, after a generation of dues-paying, UCF is straining to get enough attendance and other vitals to jump to Division I-A, where the big boys play. If that brings snorts of excitement from the Bulls, they should put up their $5-mil and go for it.

But c'mon, isn't USF fantasizing about far more, including eventual year-to-year football schmoozings with the 'Canes, Gators and 'Noles? Have they examined how long that could take and how much money it could cost?

Hey, teacher, call on me . . .

Aware of the costs of playing NCAA major football, my answers to those questions would be "forget it!" and "forever" and "megafortunes." Big-time college football is too expensive, too complex and too competitive for USF - for any school - to initiate in the '90s.

There are alternatives.

Mid-sized NCAA football, including divisions II and I-AA, might be realistic. But how long would that be acceptable to USF's ego? This is a big school in a big metropolitan area. Small is a word that makes for a bad chew. Could the Bulls be content to spend the 21st century trying to compete with Troy State, Georgia Southern and Eastern Kentucky?

If so . . . go for it!

If USF itches to become a party to UF-UM-FSU-style football, even 20 or 30 years from now, the odds-against are horrendous. They'd have a better chance for success by plunging for 5-million $1 tickets in this week's Florida Lottery.

Here's the big question:

Among the 50 most prominent Division I football efforts, including FSU, UF and UM, along with Notre Dame and Penn State and all the other heavies, what program is the newest?

It's FSU, heading to a 48th football season since the Tallahassee school went coed in 1947. Miami is also one of the younger programs; the Hurricanes are in their 65th year. Most big-name football universities were already deep into the game by 1912, when Arizona became the 48th state.

There was a 1950s exception. Air Force Academy football was christened 38 years ago, but that was a federally funded case. I doubt the Bulls can expect football financial aid from the Clinton administration.

I'm for USF doing the right football thing. Who has the heart to give a total thumbs-down to Lee Roy Selmon, the Bulls' chief football fund-raiser and former Tampa Bay Bucs defensive Goliath? But it's too much of a longshot to gamble on USF ever swimming with our state's big football fish.

USF could probably better spend $5-million, but if the FootBulls have minds made up, they should work at building the best mid-sized NCAA program around, understanding the FSU-UM-UF level is permanently out of reach.

Unless, of course, USF wishes - once the Bulls rise to current UCF football ilk, well into the next century - to sign an occasional deal with the 'Noles, Gators or 'Canes to be a homecoming opponent amenable to 60-point clobberings.

If it tips your tankard, Bulls, go for it.

That was an awesome read! lol, but it does go to show how far the program has come and how unprecedented our clime has been. It's funny people make fun of us for playing Tennessee martin or Elon but once upon a time we were losing to those programs and people don't seem to remember that at all.

[IncrediBULL]

i traded e-mails with him today ... basically said he's glad to be wrong about usf on that count.

keep in mind, that's three years before their first game, a year before leavitt was hired, so there wasn't much to be underestimated in the first place ...

Greg,

Would love to see him do a guest article in the spt on this topic.  A reprint of his original (or at least reference it) and talk about what an unbullievable success the program has had. 

Not slamming MIzell, as he was the man in his day.  I think he would enjoy writing on all fronts that college fb has changes a lot in 14 years.  Especially within the traditional programs and conferences. 

[gurlybull]

Yeah, that would be neat to see.  And I can't take credit for the find..one of my friends has this article posted in his room and forwarded it to me! 

GO BULLS!!

-Gurly

[Mag Pie]

lol..yeah I was 9 years old!  haha

Haha, I was too.

I knew nothing of the Bulls back then.  Actually, I knew nothing about college football.  We don't hear about that much in the Bronx.

[gurlybull]

Yeah, I was gonna say...I didn't even live in FLorida...lol.

[SRQ]

you can be sure that some of Mizell's bias came from his hatred of anything 'Tampa'.  He and McEwen had egos way too big to both be in the same media market.  Mizell couldn't compete with McEwen on local/state influence so he adopted the national/international 'I'm too big-time for this burg' attitude.  Pompous putz.

Really nice to see how wrong he was.