John Romano: With a choice between glory or heartbreak, USF has another stumble

John Romano, Tampa Bay Times on Nov 15, 2025

Published in Football

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Let’s start with disappointment.

It’s there, obviously. Along with frustration, misery and bitterness.

But are you more disappointed in USF for losing, 41-38, to Navy on Saturday afternoon, or are you disappointed in yourself for getting sucked into the excitement of a potential College Football Playoff bid? Maybe a little bit of both?

You see, over the years, USF has been college football’s precocious social climber. A tenacious, overachieving upstart of a program that teases and titillates at midseason before finishing more quietly than expected.

It happened in 2007 when the Bulls reached No. 2 in the nation before losing three consecutive games and disappearing from the polls.

It happened again the next season when they got to No. 10 before losing four of the next five and fading into oblivion.

It happened in 2018 when USF began with seven consecutive victories and a top-25 ranking and then lost the next six games.

The Bulls have been ranked in the regular season in seven different years but, come January, they’re usually nowhere to be seen.

And that’s why Saturday’s letdown feels so familiar. And so devastating.

USF was four victories from not only winning its first conference championship, but likely earning a bid to the College Football Playoffs. And while victories are never guaranteed, the Bulls would have almost certainly been viewed as the stronger team in all four games.

Just like they were on Saturday when they were 10 1/2-point favorites against Navy.

Just like they were three weeks ago when they were six-point favorites before losing to Memphis.

Turns out, USF’s greatest adversary is not Navy or Memphis or Miami. It’s prosperity.

At times, it feels as if the Bulls have perfected the role of the underdog team with a borrowed stadium and the more historically relevant programs surrounding them in Gainesville, Tallahassee and Miami. Give them a mountain to climb, and the Bulls are relentless. But give them a spotlight and they often recede.

And this season may be the most painful of all.

It’s not that USF began the year as an odds-on favorite to be one of 12 teams still standing in the playoffs. The Bulls were not ranked in the preseason, they had the toughest non-conference schedule around and they had not had a winning record in the American Conference since 2017.

So, yeah, they’ve earned every plaudit they’ve received in the past two months. They beat two ranked opponents and they put themselves in position to play meaningful games in December for the first time in program history.

This wasn’t just wishful thinking. The path to unprecedented success and exposure for the program — and the potential lure for a new conference — was there for the taking.

Instead, USF just offered more fodder to the critics who say Group of Five teams do not deserve an automatic bid into the postseason.

“This is supposed to be about excellence, not about being fair. This is not Little League where we give a second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-place trophy. This should be the best,” ESPN personality Paul Finebaum said on a recent broadcast.

“It’s already a convoluted system because we let the group of whatever in. The Group of Five with South Florida. They have no business … that conference, that division really has no business playing. That’s like letting the (best) Triple-A team into the major league playoffs. It doesn’t happen in any other sport.”

Finebaum’s analogies are a little twisted, but he does have recent results in his favor.

Memphis was the top Group of Five contender in the first CFP ranking, and the Tigers promptly lost to unranked Tulane. South Florida replaced Memphis as the Group of Five frontrunner and now has lost to unranked Navy. The perception of a bunch of middling teams just got a little more entrenched.

So is this it for USF? Is the season kaput?

More than likely. Their odds of reaching the American Conference Championship game are something less than slim, and their stock in the CFP rankings is going to take a huge hit. James Madison, San Diego State or Boise State may be the biggest beneficiaries of USF’s slip from CFP contention.

If we take a step back and look at where USF is in 2025 compared to where the Bulls were when Alex Golesh arrived before the 2023 season, it’s fair to say the ascent has been remarkable. So maybe looking at this season as a disappointment seems a little harsh.

It’s just that USF was so close to breaking through, it’s hard to view it any other way.