You can’t blame the University of South Florida — oops, USF — for wanting to get out from under that geographic misnomer of a name. So, not unlike UCLA, it will go strictly by its initials, USF. And, frankly, whatever confusion ensues with the University of San Francisco, a two-time national champion in basketball, is an acceptable tradeoff.
What’s been hard to fathom is that “South Florida” has hung on for nearly half a century. But there are fates worse than geographical imprecision. Former Gov. LeRoy Collins, who voted for “South Florida,” actually preferred Florida Temple Terrace University — FTTU.