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Bulls enter Year 6 with optimism

With depth, experience and talent, USF will be ''a very good football team,'' Jim Leavitt says.

By PETE YOUNG, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 8, 2002

TAMPA -- Jim Leavitt stepped off the South Florida team bus in the bowels of Raymond James Stadium and strode onto the field.

Nevermind the stadium was empty, the field unmarked and the weather overcast and rainy. Leavitt, the only coach in USF history, walked alone to about where the 50-yard line would be on the USF sideline.

He gazed around. He got pelted with rain. He loved it.

"Does this say anything about how our season is going to go? I hope so. I love playing in the rain," Leavitt said Wednesday during USF's rain-soaked media day. "You get goose bumps. You think about how fortunate you are to be playing in this stadium.

"I just love being out there. The weather doesn't bother me."

It will take more than precipitation to stem the wave of optimism surrounding USF football. The sixth-year Bulls are hurtling confidently into uncharted territory.

Last season, USF went 8-3 in its Division I debut. This season, the Bulls are deeper, more experienced and more talented. And more confident.

"This is going to be a very good football team," Leavitt said. "Somewhere along the line, this football team is going to explode. Somewhere along the line, this team is really going to go."

The growing pains and alibis affiliated with youth and inexperience continue to be stripped away. Before your eyes, USF football has been transformed.

"It's definitely changed since I first got here. We've definitely built up as a team," said senior middle linebacker Kawika Mitchell, who transferred from Georgia and is entering his third season as a starter.

"We're confident. We showed last year we could do a good job against Division I teams, and we know this year we're going to do a good job."

The primary difference between now and a few years ago is the quality of backups. There is high-caliber depth at all positions, a key indicator of a bona fide Division I-A program.

"The bottom part has risen drastically," Leavitt said. "Everybody on this team has got some ability. Everybody can go out there and do some good things."

In its first four seasons, as a I-AA program with fewer scholarships and less-talented players, USF invited hordes of walkons. Not anymore. With 85 scholarships and a maximum of 105 players, Leavitt is turning away players. "I've turned down 80 guys. It really is unbelievable," Leavitt said. "But we can only have 20 (walkons). I'm turning down guys I know can play."

Just six starters from last season graduated, and the roster is stocked with accomplished players competing for playing time. Six of the front seven on defense are back. All of the skill players return.

At receiver, for example, USF returns nine players with 12 or more receptions last season, five with 25 or more.

"It's so different than when I first got here. We have 17 receivers right now," senior receiver DeAndrew Rubin said. "Going into spring ball (my first year), everybody knew who was going to be (first string), who was going to be (second string). Now it's all up for grabs.

'It's a whole different intensity level."

While USF expects to be better, it might not be reflected in its record.

The Bulls, who begin play in Conference USA next season, play a tougher schedule featuring two marquee games, at Arkansas and at Oklahoma, and four matchups with future C-USA foes, Southern Miss, East Carolina, Memphis and Houston.

"You always have to have a cause. This year, it's our final year as a I-A independent, and we play five teams from (I-A) conferences. And we want to prove ourselves to those conferences," Leavitt said. "Our goal is to be in a position where we're knocking heads with the best in Conference USA."

Such optimism and confidence were in full bloom Wednesday.

"The talent is here to do well. It will be fun to see how high they want to take the bar," Leavitt said. "The pieces of the puzzle are there. What will this team do? I don't know, but it will be fun to see.

"We're going to go after it. We're going to be aggressive. We're not going to sit back."

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