Yes, it happened: USF Shocks Florida Gators at The Swamp in Historic Victory

There was a time when Saturday’s game against the Florida Gators must have seemed like deja fooey to USF fans. They have been through the “hey, great effort” story before.

But this team is different.

The 18-16 win Saturday at 13th-ranked Florida, a 17.5 point favorite, is a moment in USF’s history that eclipses close losses to Alabama and last year’s loss to Miami. The Bulls fought the Gators to a standstill for most of the afternoon at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, and then beat them when it counted.

This wasn’t the ol’ college try that fell apart. This was an announcement that the Bulls belong among the serious college football programs. Or, as a visibly drained Bulls coach Alex Golesh said, it's about USF's identity.

"I talked about identity a lot going into last week. Talked about identity a lot this summer, really mentally and physically tough football team that's process-driven, that's really focused now, that plays for each other," he said. "Told these guys in the locker room that in modern-day college football, what everybody talks about and what everybody writes about, but in modern-day college football, it's really, really hard."

Speaking of hard, the gauntlet that was supposed to destroy USF to open the season – games against three top 25-ranked teams – is suddenly 2-0 in the Bulls' favor. It shouldn't be a question now of whether the Bulls should be ranked, but how high up in the polls should they be? But that, too, misses the point.

The polls and all the back-slaps now are byproducts of the program that Golesh and his staff set out to build when he came here to rescue a program that was a hot mess.

I’ll leave the argument about whether this is the greatest win in USF’s history to others. Beating Auburn on the road and 5th-ranked West Virginia at home was the gold standard for USF football, but beating Boise State and the Gators at The Swamp rivals that.

“In modern-day college football, it’s really hard to do what these guys are doing right now, which is not listening to anybody outside of our building, trusting in their inner circle, believing in their inner circle, and just continuing to be proud of building something they're continuing to tell the story,” Golesh said.

The story right now is that the Bulls’ defense is playing at a championship level. Once again, they held what was supposed to be an elite offense to a piddling total of 355 total yards.

So, what comes next?

The game next Saturday at Miami will no doubt have a massive amount of hype, but even if that goes south for USF, the Bulls have already made their point.

This is about making a national statement, and the Bulls did that on Saturday at The Swamp.

This wasn’t deja fooey.

This wasn’t just a great effort.

This was a program-changing win.

At least until the next one.