USF athletic director on conference realignment: "It's about being in the top tier"

The news that the Pac-2 grew to the Pac-6 with the addition of four Mountain West Conference schools lit a new flame to the question of where USF will land in the next round of realignment.

After all, that has already started with the Pac move, and that conference needs to add two more schools to meet the minimum NCAA requirement for eight programs. Who says it has to stop at eight schools, though?

An interview with USF Vice President for Athletics Michael Kelly with On3’s Mike Singer earlier this week was bound to trigger more speculation about what’s ahead. That’s especially true with this quote from Kelly: “It’s all about being in the top tier.”

But what is the top tier?

For now, that’s an easy question: the SEC and Big Ten are the holy grail conferences for now, but what about five years from now? Will conference affiliations even matter in college football?

 “No one knows in five years if there’s even a P4 or if there’s one group of 50 or 80,” Kelly said. “I don’t get too caught up with the specifics of a conference, but I know we’re on the radar of the current P4, and we’re focused on making the American the strongest it can be as well. It’s important to be the man where you stand. Rest assured, we are constantly conversing and evaluating opportunities to determine what’s best for USF.”

Kelly told me basically the same thing about two months ago.

"My biggest focus now is to understand what the Division I landscape will look like,” he said then. “There is no reason for us to hold anything back.”

He added: “Don’t leave a place like USF out. Do you want to look back 20 years in making that decision, or look ahead 20 years at what we’re going to be?”

Here’s a key concept to remember while this all plays out: You don’t make the kind of investment USF has made in athletics unless you’re sure it will pay off.

The university has made a $360 million commitment for an on-campus stadium set to open in 2027. The groundbreaking is in less than two months.

It spent $22 million on an 88,000-square-foot indoor practice facility, paid for by private donations.

Kelly told On3 that the athletic budget has doubled since he took over in 2018 – it’s now $100 million. Football coach Alex Golesh, hired in 2022, has said repeatedly that USF’s administration has provided everything the program needs to be successful.

It’s not just football, either. The previous administration considered some of the so-called minor sports collateral damage. Kelly made it clear that every sport will be held to a higher standard and given the support they need to meet those goals.

“That’s tremendous growth in six years, including a pandemic,” Kelly said. “That’s only the operating budget and doesn’t consider all we’ve done for facilities.”

That brings us to the American Athletic Conference, which reportedly is actively courting the Air Force Academy to come on board.

In the evolving conference landscape, can anyone say definitively, at least now, that it is a lesser body than a rebuilt Pac will be? Maybe the AAC will lose programs like Tulane, UTSA, or Memphis.

What will happen if/when Clemson and FSU leave the ACC?

Does the ACC meet the same fate as the Pac, with those left behind forced to scramble for reinforcements to stay alive? If ACC leadership is smart – and I believe they are – they’re already planning their next moves for when the big bang hits.

I am sure Kelly is doing that, too. It would make no sense for USF to be left behind in the next round of shuffling.

Yes, we’re all a little impatient to discover what’s next. For USF, that’s a football game on Saturday night against 8th-ranked Miami at a packed Raymond James Stadium.

For the rest of it, we’ll know when we know.