As USF heads into its regular-season finale today at Rice, it’s useful to remember where the Bulls were predicted to finish in the American Athletic Conference preseason football standings.
A win today would give the Bulls a 5-3 conference record and a tie for fifth place with East Carolina. That’s close to the fourth-place finish the crystal ball placed USF before the season started. It would also be the third-best finish for the Bulls since the conference was formed in 2013.
Incredibly, in 12 seasons USF has finished above .500 in the AAC just three times.
That’s how low this program was when Alex Golesh took over last year.
Also, consider the adversity the Bulls faced this season. They over-scheduled the season's first six games – Top 10 teams in Alabama and Miami, perhaps the AAC’s best team in Tulane, and Memphis, the only conference team to beat the Green Wave.
Along the way, USF lost starting quarterback Byrum Brown to injury and had to turn to backup Bryce Archie, who had minimal college experience. They were also displaced by Hurricane Milton and forced to spend nearly two weeks in Orlando to escape the storm.
Yet, they enter today’s game with a chance to reach seven regular-season wins. That would give Golesh 14 wins in his first two years on the job, with a chance for one more in a bowl game.
Those 14 wins would be only one fewer than what USF had the previous five seasons combined before Golesh arrived.
Golesh has repeatedly said he was hired to build a program, not just a team. You don’t do that by taking shortcuts and recruiting players who might have the talent you’re looking for but not the temperament. From what I’ve observed, the USF players pull for each other and are willing to accept tough love when it’s needed.
Some fans were abandoning the ship when the Bulls were 2-4 and losers of three straight midway through this season. They’ve lost just once since then.
Yes, that run was against the soft underbelly of the AAC. Three coaches of teams beaten by the Bulls were fired during the season, and a fourth – interim Rice coach Pete Alamar – already knows he didn’t get the permanent job. The Owls hired Scott Abell of Davidson to take over after today.
But so what?
The Bulls could only play the teams on their schedule. If the other guys can’t fight back, that’s their problem.
Yes, USF remains a work in progress.
The key word, however, is progress. That’s what we have seen this year.