Bull Rushing Florida's Big 3

Barry Smith admires South Florida's ascent in the college football ranks.

Smith, a former All-American receiver at Florida State who also played in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has resided in Tampa, Fla., for nearly 30 years. Smith has watched the Bulls capture Tampa Bay's hearts and tickle the nation's fancy, this after holding their first team meeting under a shade tree in 1997 as the school had no proper football facilities on campus, located off I-75 in Northeast Tampa.

Now in its 13th season, USF has an opportunity to take another leap forward when it meets FSU for the first time. Is there room among the Sunshine State's Big Three -- Florida, FSU and Miami -- for a fourth team?

"The kids of today, being in a major city, playing in a major football stadium, playing in a major conference, if they [Bulls] can just tighten up their November run, maybe they are playing in one of those BCS games," Smith, who finished his FSU career in 1972 and is listed in virtually every career receiving category with 2,535 yards on 127 receptions and 27 touchdowns, told FanHouse Thursday.

"They are just a heartbeat away. There's no question they are getting the talent."

The Bulls have been on the fast track under Jim Leavitt, the only head coach in the program's history. USF has had just two losing seasons and have appeared in four consecutive bowl games. They play their home games at $168.5 million Raymond James Stadium, also home to the Tampa Bay Bucs.

Naturally, the Bulls' No. 1 goal is to win the Big East, which would earn them their first BCS bowl bid. However, the opportunity to play FSU is just as big and a victory will help prove the Bulls can bark with the state's big dogs on the front porch.

"Miami, Florida State, they've been the big brother programs," said USF senior All-America defensive end George Selvie.

"Getting a chance to go up and actually getting a chance to play your big brother and beating them one time. It's a great opportunity to do it and you can go, 'I got you that one.'"

The Big Three have all won multiple national championships -- plus, they are once again ranked at the same time in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2006 -- making it hard to imagine USF being considered as part of this club. However, the Bulls can make a statement against FSU Saturday and at home against Miami on Nov. 28.

Leavitt has said numerous times that for the Bulls to make the state's Big Three a foursome, they must defeat one of them.

"To change history and do things like that, I think you have to win," Leavitt said. "We'll go up and play the best we can."

Nearly a 15-point underdog, USF's upset chances took a blow when record-setting quarterback Matt Grothe was lost for the season with a torn ACL suffered last week against Charleston Southern. In a strange twist of fate, that means redshirt freshman quarterback B.J. Daniels, who also plays basketball at USF, will make his first career start in his hometown of Tallahassee, Fla.

Daniels was the Big Bend Player of the Year in both football and basketball at Lincoln High School but was not actively recruited by the Seminoles.

"I feel pretty confident," Daniels said.

"I feel like I've been here forever, even though it's only my second year. I've taken a million reps, both on the field physically doing it and on the sidelines doing it mentally. The mental aspect part, I know I'm ready. And Saturday, it will just be time to go."

USF is 9-1 against schools from the state of Florida, though only one of those games, a 2005 loss to Miami, were against the state's Big Three. In addition to Daniels, Saturday's game will be a huge reunion. FSU lists 72 players on its roster from Florida; USF lists 92 players. Of those numbers, 56 played at the same Florida high schools.

Leavitt certainly realizes how a victory can help in recruiting. If the Bulls can beat the Seminoles or the Hurricanes in November or the Gators in Gainesville next September, Leavitt, who once hoped to play for the Seminoles when he was a quarterback at Dixie Hollins High in St. Petersburg, Fla., can level the playing field when he meets recruits.

Count FSU coach Bobby Bowden impressed by the Bulls' accelerated learning curve.

"I can't think of a team that made faster progress," Bowden said.

"Coach Leavitt has done a tremendous job. To me, you've got a wonderful spot for it to happen. If they'll give him the facilities he needs, he'll be able to build as strong a program there as anywhere in the United States of America because of that area."

USF reached as high as No. 2 in the national rankings in 2007, but it dropped its next three games to tumble out of the polls. While the Bulls didn't meet expectation last year -- they climbed as high as No. 12 in the polls before dropping four of five games -- they steadied themselves and won their bowl game to finish 8-5.

USF fans have long circled the FSU game on their calendars.

"I personally think it's great that coach Leavitt wants to measure his program against the state's Big Three -- that's the only way you know where you stand and if you are progressing," Tampa resident Bobby Gonzalez, 49, a Bulls season-ticket holder since the program's inception who plans to attend the game, told FanHouse Thursday.

"It's exciting that USF is trying to reach that level and to be playing the big-time programs like we are doing now."



Smith has enjoyed watching USF's journey, too, and appreciates the experience of helping build a program. He played in FSU's fourth bowl game (Fiesta Bowl, 1971), was on the expansion Buccaneers in 1976 and has donated millions to FSU athletics -- the complex housing the Seminoles softball and soccer houses are named after Smith and his wife.

"I am a big Jim Leavitt fan," said Smith, also a member of FSU's Sports Hall of Fame. "He's had a chance to move on to other places throughout his tenure here, but he wants to stay here and build a program and I think that's pretty cool."

Despite the geographic confusion surrounding USF's name -- at the time of establishment in 1956, USF was the southernmost public university in the state of Florida -- Bowden believes the Bulls will be on the same map and mentioned in the same breath with the Seminoles, Gators and Hurricanes.

Saturday's sellout game of 82,300 will be one of the top three crowds ever to see the Bulls play, joining the 2005 game at Penn State (107,282) and 2007 game at Auburn (87,451).

"It's going to happen, there's no doubt it's going to happen," Bowden said.

"You take the last three years ... hasn't South Florida been ranked higher than us and Miami every year? Can it be sustained? It's hard to sustain anything. Who else sustains anything? Will they have a chance to sustain it? I would think they have about as much of a chance as anybody else."