New USF football coach Brian Hartline's message: "We will chase championships."

Brian Hartline's introduction Monday as USF's new head football coach was part joyous tent revival and part boistrous pep rally, wrapped around a little bit of news.

He spoke to an overflow crowd at the university's Alumni Center that was eager to embrace the theme of the day. The saying goes that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and judging by the reaction of those in attendance, Hartline nailed it.

"The goal here is a championship mentality and everything that we do with relentless pursuit. I very much look forward to getting to know the entire Bulls fan base, connecting with USF community, and I assure you that our goal will be to make you proud," he said. "We will win at the highest level. We will chase championships."

That, of course, is what the crowd wanted to hear and why USF hired him. It's not like he was going to walk into the room and say his goal was to have a pretty good team that occasionally won some games. But since USF has never won a football championship, it was good to hear that the chase is on.

Having an elite quarterback is a key to a championship chase. Hartline was asked about Byrum Brown, who has a year left at USF if he chooses to use it.

"The communication has been great with him. I thinik very highly of him and his parents," Hartline said. "I look forward to spending more time with him in person through this week. I like, I like his mentality. That's probably the most impressive part that I've seen, I think that's a big factor in an athlete success,"

Hartline said that putting his staff together is a top priority. and connecting with his new players are the top priorities.

'"I'm really focused on hiring the right staff, having the right guys, we've done a really good job at this point. Again, a lot of it's not public, but we're in a really good spot there," he said.

"We have five days to make sure we do a good job getting in front of them, connecting them. I've done some texts, phone calls, but I love being in person with eyes. You can kind of tell if they're full of it or not, and ultimately, that's where the connection comes from. So want to do that definitely number one at this point, once we get through some of these, but get in front of the players."

He is doing all this while still doing his job as offensive coordinator at Ohio State. The Buckeyes received a first-round bye in the playoffs and won't play until December 31.

It has been a whirlwind since last Wednesday, when USF announced it had hired Hartline following a face-to-face meeting in Columbus. CEO of Athletics Rob Higgins said Hartline was always USF's No. 1 target, and things came together over a 60-hour period after Alex Golesh left for Auburn.

"I think it was really quick in that first conversation, we certainly hit it off. I had just been hearing about Coach Hartline for years in the recruiting circle around our community, far before I even had the opportunity to work here at USF athletics," Higgins said.

"So it was one of those, as you start to go through the process, you continue to have conversation after conversation. It just the snowball effect and the momentum around it continued to grow, and thankfully, we got it done."

Going into the meeting, Hartline said "I did not have a pretty good idea" that he would be headed to USF. It took a few hours of talking with his wife after the meeting before deciding what to do.

"I think I had a great feel for them. I think I was really encouraged. But at no point did that really get to that conclusion that was a go home. I don't think we slept," he said. "It's not easy to make the right decision anytime. But by that morning, you know, we were, we're locking stuff."

And just like that, USF had one of the most highly regarded young coaches in the country.

"He certainly he knows how to win. He knows how to be a champion. He proved that last year. He's proved that throughout his career, the more that you're around that, the more that you're a part of that, the more that you help lead that, the better off we're going to be positioned as a program," Higgins said.

"But also, you look at it from an intangible, intangible side of things, with the number of times people will mention that he's our next head football coach, the social media that's been around his announcement in the first 48 hours, I think it did over 38 million impressions. All of that is frosting. The cake is that the guy is an absolute winner. He's the right person at the right time."