Construction for USF’s on-campus football stadium making steady progress

Throughout last fall and into the early part of this year, visitors to the USF campus could see and hear the sounds of progress on the Bulls soon-to-be $348.5 football home. Trucks were going in and out of the stadium site and it looked like a lot of dirt was being moved around.

As this year wound on, vertical steel beams became visible, further proof that some kind of activity was going on there. But it wasn't until a Wednesday morning media briefing at the stadium site that I could go holy cow!

It's starting to look like a real stadium!

Rob Higgins, the CEO of Athletics, gave a short update that was more like a pep rally. He had to speak extra loud to be heard over the ongoing construction noise that never seems to subside.

"I know you don't want any background noise," he told the multiple TV crews, wearing hard hats, in attendance. "But we can welcome the background noise of this incredible project. to finally have the home of our own."

In a way, the noise level was a perfect metaphor for what USF football has faced too many times while trying to be heard in the region they call home. While Florida, Florida State, Miami, and even UCF -- in that order -- dominated the college football headlines in this state, the Bulls picked a bad time to be really bad at the game.

Not to dredge up nightmarres, but when the Bulls collapsed under Charlie Strong and Jeff Scott, Crowds to watch home games at Raymond James Stadium were generally so small that they left vast sections of seats empty. That made a terrible visual on TV, which in turn sent the message that the Bulls were stuck in the mud and sinking fast.

Not any more.

The football program rebounded three years ago under Alex Golesh, earning USF some desperately needed positive recognition both locally and nationally. It was around that time that Will Weatherford, who was then the head of USF's trustee board, casually announced one day that the university was going to build an on-campus football stadium.

Mind you, there had been no commitment or even serious study about a project like that at the time, but Weatherford doesn't mess around.

And so, there we were -- watching the stadium take shape and realizing we're only 472 days away from the September 4, 2027 opening game against Louisville. It even looked to me like the project might be a little ahead of schedule.

Higgins wouldn't go quite that far, but added, "We're right on schedule."

Higgins noted "all of the different teams that are working around the block of making this happen."

He wasn't kidding.

Higgins likes to beat the sunrise to get to his office. But workers wearing lights on their helmets are already on the job when he arrives.

"The crew are out here, well before the break of dawn, to ave their headlights and lamps on, and help constructing our home," he said. "We're just appreciative of all the different people that are pouring into the project of literally and figuratively."

Visitors will note that part of the stadium's upper deck taking shape as well as the end zones and middle sections. When that work is completed, the plan is to install high-quality comfortable seating and other amenities.

The project is about more than just a place to play football and lacrosse. It will include academic space, expansion of the Tampa General Hospital Center for Athletic Excellence, and enhanced locker room amenities,

"It will have sports medicine and a recovery area, anything, and everything that is involved to be successfu located in that TGH center," Higgins said.

The plan is to start moving people into the football and other offices in about a year. That will leave about three months to fine-tune or finish anything needed at the stadium itself.

And when it finally opens with a full house of 35,000 fans (the stadium is expandable, by the way) and attention focused on everything going on at USF, think of the visual that will make.

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