How ironic.
A USF football season that begins with a victory at Notre Dame is arguably one for the ages. This could get special. This is not how seasons that end in the Meineke Car Care Bowl begin. Increasingly, this is looking like the sort of season Skip Holtz was brought in to make happen: one that results in a Big East championship and the BCS bowl bid that accompanies it.
And yet.
This is also the year of the beginning of the end of the Big East. Syracuse and Pittsburgh, two bedrock members, have blindsided the rest of the conference by announcing their defection to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Other schools, including USF, will have to fend for themselves, whatever that means, because right now the college football landscape is more of a fault line than a gridiron. Chaos and greed reign. Loyalty and integrity are naive notions. Cover-your-assets is the name of the game.
But while USF’s future is not totally and exclusively in its own hands, this much is: Positioning itself for the best possible appeal and deal.
USF is the ninth largest university in the country in the 13th largest media market. It beat Notre Dame and is nationally ranked. Now keep it up.
And next week, beat Pitt–like a dirty rug.