Goal Line Stand: Welcome to the big time, USF

The game itself scored about a one on the Esoteric Scale. It was bad enough South Florida decided to go with the asparagus uniforms and the flaming gold helmets. That didn’t do anything for the eyes, to be sure. Worse was the caliber of play. The teams combined for 10 turnovers, hardly the type of concern for the football top-10 clubs are supposed to show.

In the end, it sure didn’t matter to the Bulls. Oh, coach Jim Leavitt and his staff may have engaged this week in some high-decibel cautioning against the evils of being cavalier in the area of ball protection. That’s absolutely tolerable, especially when you have just upset the fifth-ranked team in the nation and were poised to move into the top 10 yourself. USF’s triumph over West Virginia last Friday was a seminal moment in the short history of Leavitt’s program. It was great to bump off WVU last year in Morgantown, but that was more of an upstart team’s knocking off an unsuspecting victim. Friday’s win was the result of a heavyweight fight, complete with several knockdowns and haymakers.

A lot of football remains, but looking at things the way they are now, the Bulls are poised for a Big East title and a BCS berth. Yes, an Oct. 18 trip to Rutgers will be trouble, even if the Scarlet Knights did lay down last Saturday for Maryland. Cincinnati will be tough. So will Louisville, especially if the NCAA grants the Cardinals’ request to play defense with 13 players for the rest of the year.

Even if the Bulls stagger once or twice on the road to the post-season, Friday’s triumph marks them as a full-fledged BCS school and I-A member. That may not seem like much to denizens of the SEC or other big-time confederations, but for a school which began its football program in 1997 playing the likes of Kentucky Wesleyan and Cumberland (the school Georgia Tech beat, 222-0, in 1916), and which didn’t move into the I-A ranks until 2001, gaining acceptance as a made member of the elite is heady stuff, indeed. And whipping the Mountaineers for the second straight season is a loud announcement that USF is no longer looking for a mere foot in the door. It wants to be a guest of honor at the party, too.

Leavitt gets the credit for all of it – or least 90 percent of it. He took over when South Florida football was a dream and saw it through the ugly early days, when its chances of ever competing for a top-shelf bowl berth seemed as realistic as Ricky Williams’ hopes of being a national spokesman for drug education. Not only was USF a directional school; it was also a great mystery. Ask most college football fans and they still won’t be able to tell you where the campus is (Tampa). Ask them about Leavitt, and they’ll know next to nothing, other than he doesn’t seem like someone too well acquainted with a hairbrush.

The Bulls don’t have an on-campus stadium. They just opened their football building last year and are still adding accoutrements, such as big-screen TVs and new dining halls. The physical stuff is mostly in place. It’s the intangibles which are making all the trouble. One is tradition. It’s hard to compete with Florida and Miami for recruits, when your school is all of 51 years old, and your program is 11. But Leavitt understands the power of the 21st century and its slavish devotion to the here and now. He can’t talk about Heisman winners and past titles, but he can sell that win over West Virginia, and you had better believe he and his staff will. The good news is that today’s high school student cares more about what happened last week than he does about the Ball Coach’s 1966 Heisman or an upset win in the ’84 Orange Bowl. In an era where anything or anybody 25 or older is considered “old school,” being new has its privileges.

Leavitt has done it by mining Florida for the light-blue chippers, players good enough to make an impact but not big enough stars to delight the recruiting analysts. QB Matt Grothe is a perfect example. He checks in at 6-0, 200, hardly the ideal size for the position. So, he’s in Tampa, instead of perhaps Gainesville. But when one Big East coach calls him the conference’s “Joe Montana,” you tend to pay attention. Grothe began winning games last year as a redshirt freshman and hasn’t quit. It doesn’t look like he wants to, either.

The rest of the team is just like Grothe. Nobody salivated when they signed. But they keep cheering as they pile up the victories. Last week’s win over West Virginia was a great step, but eight more games remain, and USF needs to keep winning, or else it will fall back into the heap far more quickly than other, more established teams will. That’s what happens when you’re the New Guy. There’s something else that happens, too.

People want to meet you. With Leavitt leading the way, expect the Bulls to become acquainted with plenty of people, including some big-time prep stars. When that happens, look out. Who needs tradition, when you’re kicking butt in the here and now?

GAME OF THE WEEK: Florida at LSU
This one looked a whole lot better before the Gators coughed it up against Auburn, but it should be about as good as it gets in the SEC this season. The Tigers ascended to the top spot in the polls, despite a slow-starting win over Tulane last week and continue to impress with their brutish defense and speed throughout the lineup. But LSU was unable to overcome multiple mistakes last year against the Gators and had better be careful this time, too. Tim Tebow will make that aggressive defense pay a few times with his strong legs, and his arm is much improved from last year. But LSU has too much experience and a defense capable of keeping the Gator spread attack under relative control.
LSU 23, Florida 17

BUMP AND RUNS:
It’s great to see Notre Dame at 0-5, but the Irish are getting closer. Don’t be surprised if either UCLA or Boston College falls at ND’s hand in the next two weeks.

Missouri is off to a perfect 4-0 start, but we’ll learn a whole lot more about it in the next three weeks, when it faces Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas Tech.

The same goes for Purdue, which has bolted from the gate 5-0 but runs into Ohio State, Michigan and Iowa the next three Saturdays.

If you’re trying to make sense of the ACC, what with all the upsets, Boston College’s clean start and the riddle that is Virginia Tech, don’t sleep on Florida State, which looks to have an offense now that Xavier Lee has taken over at quarterback.

Before you start crowing too loudly about the Pac-10, remember that UCLA lost to Utah, which lost to UNLV, which lost to Nevada, which lost to Northwestern, which lost to Duke.

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