Is it time to believe in the Bulls?

[USFishin]

Is it time to believe in the Bulls? 

**** Weiss

FOXSports.com, Updated 3 hours ago

By way of introduction, the University of South Florida is a Big East school located in Tampa, Fla. The Bulls, who have only been playing football for 11 years, are 6-0 and have impressive wins at SEC power Auburn, 26-23, on Sept. 8 and West Virginia, defeating the Mountaineers for a second straight year, 21-13, in a Sept. 21 Friday night game before a record sellout crowd of 67,018 at Raymond James Stadium.

If they defeat Rutgers Thursday night in an 7:30 ET game in Piscataway, they could officially become the BCS's worst nightmare  a relative stranger that has a legitimate shot to win them all and play in the national championship game in New Orleans.

Rutgers coach Greg Schiano sounds like a true believer.

"They look awfully good. I don't know any more what a No. 1 team looks like,'' he said. "It's almost like you don't want to be the No. 1 team. Don't get me wrong, I would take that today, but they are very talented. The thing that separates them from a lot of teams that you watch is they can really run at every positon  even their offensive line.

"They remind me of some of the Miami teams that I was part of (as an assistant) and played against.''

But others like Jimmy Johnson and Terry Bradshaw, two astute NFL on FOX analysts who have both obviously never seen the Bulls play live, seemed skeptical when the initial rankings came out and the Bulls were ranked No. 2 overall behind Ohio State, largely because they were ranked No. 1 by the computers.

"Do computers watch games?'' Johnson asked.

No. They also don't care about coaching pedigrees or heritage. They only measure how teams are playing against this year's schedule.

We have entered a brave new world in college football where 10 teams ranked in the Top 10 have been hit by the upset bug in the past two weeks and South Florida has emerged as the new Rutgers. The Bulls started the season unranked and basically unknown nationally, perceived to be the third-best team at best in a football-crazed state that includes defending national champion Florida, Florida State and a supposedly resurgent Miami.

There is little question South Florida is having a better season to date than all three. Florida State (4-2) and Miami (4-3), who play this weekend, are both unranked. Florida (4-2) checks in at an underrated 15 in the BCS but the mighty Gators lost to Auburn at the Swamp.

Convincing the human voters of that could be harder, even though West Virginia and Louisville  the Big East champions the last two years  beat SEC champion Georgia and ACC champion Wake Forest in their BCS bowl matchups.

Johnson, who used to coach at the University of Miami before his Super Bowl run with the Cowboys, has questioned South Florida all season, wondering whether the Bulls even belonged in the Top 5 the previoius week and suggesting there were a number of two-loss teams that could wear the Bulls out.

There is also always the chance that voters for the Harris and Coaches' polls could start leap-frogging one loss teams from the SEC or Pac-10 ahead of South Florida. We're pretty sure unbeaten BC, which is ranked No. 3, and traditional powers like LSU and Oklahoma, which have one loss, would be fine with that.

With that in mind, it is obvious that style points will become more important for all the candidates, especially South Florida, which has more to prove against teams like Rutgers, Cincinnati and Louisville.

A month ago, Central Florida lost to Big 12 giant Texas, 35-32. The Bulls made a compelling case for themselves Saturday when they gored the Golden Knights, 64-12, before another huge home crowd of 65,098. Sophomore quarterback Matt Grothe, a young Doug Flutie clone, ripped off 312 yards of total offense and a swarming, aggressive defense led by sack king George Selvie limited the Knights, who had 351 total yards of offense against the Longhorns, to just 145  shutting down Kevin Smith (55 yards on 18 carries before sitting out most of the second half after the score got out of hand) in the process.

Bulls coach Jim Leavitt, a hometown hero who is becoming a strong candidate for national coach of the year, has taken a low-key approach to USF's success. But he knows it's not possible to live in a vacuum.

"No matter what I say, the players are going to see it,'' Leavitt said. "They're going to notice it. They don't live in a cave. I'm not going to talk much about it. What good does it do?''

Bulls running backs coach Carl Franks feels the same way. "When you get those kinds of accolades, that kind of recognition, the big thing is to treat it like a bottle of poison,'' he said. "It's not going to hurt you unless you swallow it. We can enjoy the poison at the end of the year. The players can enjoy it at the end of the year. Fans can enjoy whatever they want right now.''

They are. The school is planning to hold a "Bulls Frenzy" watch party for its students at the Sun Dome where the game will be shown on on the big video screen.

The spotlight will definitely be on when the Bulls meet Rutgers, a 4-2 team that captured the hearts of college football fans everywhere last Nov. 8 when they rallied to beat third- ranked Louisville, 28-25. The Knights would love nothing better than to use this game as a springboard to jump back into the national picture. They began to emerge as a feel-good story when they played South Florida last year, turning loose tailback Ray Rice for 212 yards rushing during a 22-20 victory in Tampa. Rice has scored a touchdown in 14 straight games.

But South Florida, which has not allowed any back to gain over 100 yards in the 14 games since, likes the idea of playing Cinderella, too.

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