by Patrick Zier | Oct 16, 2026 |
South Florida’s Brian Hartline is walking a tightrope and the question is whether or not he can get to the other side. Halfway through the season, two straight conference losses have effectively eliminated the Bulls from any shot at an American Conference championship and dampened the enthusiasm Hartline did nothing to discourage when he was hired to replace Alex Golesh.
“There’s been some success here over the last couple years, but nowhere near where it should be,” Hartline told On3’s Pete Nakos prior to the season. “The expectation should be to win – the floor here should be a constant chase for the American Conference championship.” It was a clear shot at Golesh, who earlier had said there was no way USF could ever win a national title.
So if there were high expectations for this program, Hartline put them out there. And there was no reason not to believe. Hartline, who had been the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, was considered an outstanding hire. He brought in what was generally considered the top transfer class in the Group of 6. His quarterback, Michael Van Buren, had been a starter in the SEC and ranked among the best signal callers in the portal.
With a new stadium set to open in 2027, new facilities springing up left and right and Hartline expected to take the football program to new heights, the USF community was almost giddy. Change was in the wind and USF would – finally – take its rightful place in the world of college athletics.
Lost in all of this was the fact that this was not a rebuild. Golesh had already brought the Bulls back to respectability. In the three years prior to Golesh’s arrival, USF compiled records of 1-8 in 2020, 2-10 in 2021 and 1-11 in 2022. In 2023 and ’24 they were 7-6 and they were 9-4 in 2025. They made bowl games all three years.
It was the largest turnaround in USF history and Golesh’s winning percentage, 59 percent, was the second best ever at the school, topped only by USF’s first coach, Jim Leavitt, who won 63 percent of his games over a 10-year span. Golesh’s offenses were particularly effective. In 2025, USF ranked third in the country in total offense, averaging 488.7 yards per game, and fifth in scoring with a 40.8 points per game average.
Hartline installed a more traditional system that slowed the offensive pace and has struggled to maintain consistency, so USF is starting over again. Currently, USF is 88th in the country in scoring at 26.2 points per game and 111th in total offense, averaging 334.8 yards per game.
And Hartline has backed away from his earlier comments about competing for a conference championship every year and is now urging patience. His main concern is developing a new culture and process, which, he says, will eventually make the Bulls competitive.
“We’ve got to understand that you win with fundamentals, not play calls, and so we’ve got to make sure we’re spending enough time on that as a team,” Hartline said after the UTSA loss according to USF’s football website. “In the end, we are building. As much as I hate saying that. We are getting better, it’s just not good enough,” Hartline declared.
“And so as a group, we have to make sure we are continuing to put in the work to give ourselves a chance. I’m looking forward to the day when the coin turns,” Hartline continued. “I don’t think it’s necessarily guys can or can’t do things, but, you know, we have routine plays we have to make. We have to hit them.
“The pass game’s got to continue to improve, be more consistent instead of so flashy. But we’ll keep putting the work in. Again, the work’s been put in throughout the week, ” Hartline emphasized. “That’s the biggest thing I’m most pleased with. I just wish the guys could reap the benefits of what that feels like consistently on game day.
“That being said, the season’s halfway over and I’m looking forward to what we can do the second half. It’s pretty black and white,” Hartline said. “Ultimately we still have goals we’re chasing and if we have a bunch of guys that are willing to cash in after six games, then we have the wrong guys.
“We need to keep putting in the work. We know the work doesn’t guarantee us anything, but that increases the odds of reaching our goal. Without it, we have no shot,” Hartline declared. “These guys have a lot of goals, both personally and as a team, and it all starts with how we practice on Sunday and how we practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. You rarely get better on game day, you get better throughout the week.
“So we have to get better,” Hartline stressed. “And we don’t have time to worry about past results. They stink, don’t get me wrong, but the focus is on getting better.” And the Bulls do indeed have to get better. The meat of their schedule is still ahead, starting with a much improved UAB team after Kent State.
Although it’s not likely, if the Bulls don’t solidify their offense and stop the defensive lapses in critical situations, they might lose every game after Kent State. Wins over Kent State and UAB would give them confidence, because they need proof of concept. It’s all well and good to talk about improvement, but if you don’t see it on the scoreboard, you begin to wonder if what you’re doing will really work. And if that happens, Hartline could slip off that tightrope before he gets to the other side.
by Patrick Zier | Oct 10, 2026 |
You sometimes get the impression that Chase Briscoe feels the need to prove he truly belongs at Joe Gibbs Racing. Briscoe, who somewhat surprisingly is starting to emerge as Toyota’s best bet to win a championship, came over to JGR last year after the collapse of Stewart-Haas.
And immediately, he understood he had to change his mindset. As Stewart-Haas crumbled, there were no expectations to win, only worries about where you were going to wind up when the end finally came. Because of that, for a number of years prior to its shutdown S-H had not been competitive. If you were a driver, you got as much out of the car as you could knowing the best you could hope for was a mediocre finish.
Not so at JGR. Everyone there goes into each race confident any of its cars can win every time out. That put pressure on Briscoe to perform at the same level, to prove he belonged. He had to get used to cars capable of doing anything he wanted them to do, of being competitive in any race.
In his first year with JGR and using the Old Guy Sport competition index to measure his performance against both the other three JGR cars and the rest of the field, Briscoe outran every Toyota on the track except his JGR teammate, Denny Hamlin, and Chevy’s Kyle Larson. The OGS competition index is used because it is a better indication of competitiveness than the NASCAR point system, which rewards finishing races, not competing in them.
While he has slipped a bit this year; Hamlin, Larson and JGR teammate Christopher Bell are currently ahead of him in the OGS standings as the season nears its end, he is still running well. And as the other Toyotas have faltered in their chase for the championship, it is Briscoe who has picked up the flag.
Last week’s race at Las Vegas is a perfect example. Hamlin, who has struggled some of late, spun out all by himself coming out of a corner and damaged his front splitter, effectively taking him out of contention. Bell lost his power steering, and couldn’t overcome that. And Ty Gibbs, the fourth JGR entry, was penalized for speeding on pit road.
Briscoe dominated the race and held off the red-hot Larson to get the win. This after a fourth place finish at Kansas, a race he felt he should have won. Again, using the OGS competition index as a guide, Briscoe has scored 94 points in the last two events, far more than any other Toyota (Hamlin is next with 37) and more than anybody but Larson, who continues to play King Kong against the field. Larson had 115 points.
But talking about the win, Briscoe’s insecurity appeared to come through. “I put pressure on myself after last week (Kansas),” he said according to NASCAR.com’s website. “You don’t want your guys to lose confidence in you. I felt like after last week; I drove to the lead and you lose the race with six to go.
“I don’t really feel like I made a mistake per se last week,” he continued. “I mean, I was just really loose, and I could have done a better job of defending Larson, but still, you don’t want it to be two weeks in a row where you lose a race in the last five to 10 laps. I just feel like your confidence from the team guys, in their driver, can go away really quickly.”
This is in sharp contrast to someone like Hamlin, who definitely feels he has a different rapport with his team and considers mistakes, both by the driver and the team, to simply be part of racing. “Just trying to get back the track position we lost and got up in the marbles (little balls of rubber that come off the tires as they wear) and spun out,” Hamlin told NBCsports.com.
“There’s nothing you can do now postrace,” Hamlin added. “Just got to go on to the next race and see if we can find a way to win. Charlotte (on deck Sunday) should be good for us but today certainly didn’t live up to what we expected.”
Like Hamlin, Bell just kind of shrugged off the power steering issue even though it impacted him more because he’s still recovering from a broken wrist suffered at Michigan in June. “My wrist is fine,” he said, again according to NBCsports.com. “My hands are a little bit shaky and tingly but I’m going to be okay.
“Disappointing not to be able to capitalize on a day like today when other guys had issues. It looked like an opportunity to make up some points and it didn’t happen. Just going to go out there and race. We’ve got five more (races) left and I’m going to try and win a couple.”
But Bell didn’t see the need for his crew to explain what went wrong and hasn’t lost any confidence in them because the power steering went out. It’s on to the next race. And as time goes by, Briscoe will settle in at JGR. He’s in a position he’s never been in before, but he can handle it. Gibbs wouldn’t have hired him if he couldn’t.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Charlotte: 1-Kyle Larson, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at Charlotte: Not applicable, last year’s race at Charlotte was run on the road course. This year, it is on the oval.
Top five at Charlotte last year: Again, not applicable.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Las Vegas picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Larson, 3-Bell. Las Vegas winner: Chase Briscoe. OGS season record: 13-13.
OGS competition index top 10 after 26 races: 1-Hamlin 611 points, 2-Larson 526, 3-Bell 467, 4-Briscoe 415, 5-Tyler Reddick 413, 6-Ty Gibbs 354, 7-Ryan Blaney 342, 8-Joey Logano 308, 9-Shane van Gisbergen 226, 10-Chase Elliott 192.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (Tracks most like Charlotte): 1-Hamlin 465 points, 2-Larson 328, 3-Reddick 301, 4-Bell 268, 5-Briscoe 250, 6-Elliott 120, 7-William Byron 119, 8-Blaney 81, 9-Alex Bowman 80, 10-Austin Cindric 79.
by Patrick Zier | Oct 4, 2026 |
It you play with fire often enough, you will get burned. And South Florida, which has been playing with fire ever since the Army game, got burned badly Saturday when it lost to Temple. Once again, the direction this team is headed, at least for the short term, is in question.
Over the past few years, South Florida has been steadily upgrading its entire athletic program, the purpose of which was to eventually attract attention from a Power 4 conference, to prove it was ready to compete at the highest level.
Central to that goal was building a winning football team, establishing itself as a premier Group of 6 competitor able to win on the big stage. Bringing in highly respected Ohio State assistant Brian Hartline was thought to be the final piece of the puzzle, putting someone in charge who could take USF where it wants to go.
That may still happen, but with the loss to Temple, the road forward is suddenly much more difficult. There were early warning signs, but they were mostly ignored as the Bulls raced out to a 4-0 start. Hartline’s transfer portal class was considered by many the best in the Group of 6. The eventual winner of the team’s quarterback competition, Michael Van Buren, had started games in the SEC. Hartline did not discourage talk that this team should contend for an American Conference championship.
Still…While the Bulls were 4-0 before the loss to Temple, nothing except a 59-17 pasting of Delaware State, an outmanned FCS school which is a step below the Group of 6 in the NCAA’s football hierarchy, came easy. They beat FIU by 10 pts, but only led 6-3 going into the fourth quarter. They had their best effort against Army, winning 28-24 after trailing by 10 with just 4:59 to play. They beat Bowling Green 14-6 but had to score twice in the fourth quarter to do it. Then came Temple, and an unexpected 17-13 loss.
If there is one common thread that runs through the last couple games, it is that South Florida has not improved since taking down Army. That win presented USF with an “opportunity,” as they now say, to better itself, to start living up to what it was expected to become.
But it hasn’t, and making things even more difficult, USF is about to face the toughest teams on its schedule starting Thursday, when it travels to UTSA. UTSA had a difficult time with Rice Saturday, but it is 25-1 at home since 2020 and 4-1 this year with only a 30-6 loss to No. 1 Texas marring its record.
Hartline, though, will not panic. His demeanor after the Temple game was exactly the same as his demeanor after beating Army. He takes things as they come. But if he is to make this season the success he wants and thinks it can be, things have to change quickly. Because right now, the Bulls look more like a pretender then a contender.
Best case scenario? Hartline and his staff figure things out and USF wins nine or 10 games. Worst case? Well, if they don’t improve, every team they have left to play is good enough to beat them.
“What needs to happen? I can’t say we have to practice better because we had a pretty good week of practice before we played Temple,” Hartline commented after the game according to USF’s football website. “So, I think we’re doing a poor job of taking practice to game day.
“Like, you know, alignment issues. Like just not being on the ball or not covering guys up. We are dropping a lot of footballs,” Hartline continued. “I feel like the protection was pretty darn good. The O-line stepped up in a good way. I think that, you know, maybe we were getting out of the pocket a little too quick at times. The running game was not as explosive.
“I think the routine plays need to be routine, like when we throw and catch,” Hartline said. “There were missed targeted throws, but when you have those drops, those negative plays, I think we have to do a better job of putting guys in position to execute better.
“Everything’s under review,” Hartline went on. “But again, the guys’ work ethic, the way they practice, has gotten better each week and I have to rely on that. I’m a big believer in that. The issues are there and they’re finally starting to kick us in the butt, no doubt about that,” Hartline added. “We are definitely our own worst enemy on the field. We gotta grow up quick.”
Much of this seems to be a lack of focus, mental errors that can cost you regardless of who you’re playing. But with UTSA next up and a brutal November schedule that includes East Carolina, Memphis, Florida Atlantic and Tulane in succession, the Bulls have to get his cleaned up – now.
This team has a lot of potential, but as the late, great Atlanta Falcon center Jeff Van Note, an 11th round draft pick in 1969 who ended up making six Pro Bowls, once said: “Po-tential. That just means you ain’t done nothin’ yet.”
