by Patrick Zier | Nov 11, 2026 |
For USF, it was always going to come down to November. November would be the test; four big games with huge consequences. New coach Brian Hartline had said this program should be better than it was in the past, that it had not lived up to its potential. Under Alex Golesh, USF had played pretty well; 9-3 in his final season last year. Hartline promised more, and November would indicate how much more was there…
East Carolina can be troublesome. It is not the best team in the American but it is not the worst, either. And that’s where November started for the Bulls, a game at East Carolina that would set the tone for a home game against Memphis, always a powerhouse in the American, and then a trip to upstart FAU. The November finale would be against Tulane, up and down and, most people think, not playing to its potential.
But that was a long way away. East Carolina held the key to November and it looked like the Bulls had unlocked the door until the last play of the game, when the Pirates stunned USF with a 55-yard field goal as time expired to steal a 20-17 win.
So now, the pressure is on. The offense has been inconsistent all year and that showed up again in the loss to East Carolina, and the defense, which has played well for the most part, is susceptible to allowing late scoring drives. Memphis, which has beaten USF five straight times and is hot on the trail of an American Conference championship, will come in confident, ready to exploit any doubts that have crept into the players’ minds after the disappointing defeat at East Carolina.
Hartline says his team has put East Carolina in the rear view mirror. “How’s the mood of these guys? Really good,” Hartline said before the Memphis game. “I mean that was probably my biggest concern, you know, the conversation that was had between the team and the leadership group. But that’s been awesome. That’s probably your biggest concern,” Hartline repeated.
“You know, in this day and age the reality of it is you got your team and you got your goals and you also still have individual goals,” Hartline said. “You want to make sure there’s not a splintering. You have to understand that individual goals align with team goals and if you have goals, whatever they are, they’re typically aligned with having a good football team.
“So you see a whole lot of all-conference football players or guys getting opportunities at the next level who are on bad teams” Hartline continued. “It all works together and I think, in this day and age, it’s very easy to turn away from that and get individualized and very self centered. It’s just natural.”
The only way to prevent that, according to Hartline, is to establish a culture that makes individual achievement subordinate to the higher team goals, for the players to take pride in what they’re building. “I think there’s a lot of guys that are in their last year of eligibility that really take pride in building the foundation for what’s going to happen moving forward,” Hartline remarked, referring to USF.
“And then there’s a bunch of guys who want to be here next year, that want to take the next three or four games to the next level,” he added. That would build momentum for next season and give the team confidence that what Hartline is trying to do will work.
Still, there are some problems here. This team is still struggling. It has not shown it can compete consistently with the best teams in the league, and it needs proof of concept. Winning out would provide that, but winning out will be extremely difficult with Memphis and then FAU providing major road blocks.
So far, Hartline has not lived up the expectations he encouraged prior to the start of the season. He needs a strong finish; some of the fan base is already restless, disappointed. He has not reached the standard set by Golesh, let alone improved on it.
If this team slips to 6-6 or 7-5, there will be no carry over to 2027 and the opening of a new stadium, which has energized the fan base and raised expectations of better things to come. The next three weeks are very important for Hartline, the players and the administration because they will signal which way this program is headed. Up, or down.
by Patrick Zier | Nov 8, 2026 |
You can’t escape the irony. Last year, Denny Hamlin lost his shot at a Cup championship in the final race of the season at Phoenix when crew chief Chris Gayle opted to pit for four tires instead of two. Kyle Larson, who only took two, ended up winning the race and the championship.
Then last Sunday at Martinsville, Hamlin, needing to cut into Larson’s point lead to set himself up for a final charge at Homestead Sunday, was victimized again. Gambling that there would be a caution during the first stage of the race, Gayle elected to leave Hamlin out while others pitted. The caution never came, and Hamlin was left running on worn tires as the other contenders zoomed by him.
Hamlin, who trailed Larson by 73 points when the race started, never recovered and left Martinsville 70 back at the end of the day. Game, set, match as they say in tennis. Doesn’t matter what happens at Homestead. Hamlin can’t make that up, and he knows it.
And so Hamlin, the best driver in the sport the past two years, has no Cup championships while Larson, who has been good but not as good as Hamlin, now will have two straight. Which is why the NASCAR championship shouldn’t be decided by a playoff, but rather by how well you race over an entire season.
This isn’t football. It isn’t baseball, or the NBA. Those are entirely different animals. If you have a bad play, strike out with the bases loaded or miss 10 shots in a row, you get a chance to recover. Not in NASCAR. Make the wrong judgment call, as Gayle did last year at Phoenix and again this year at Martinsville, get penalized for going too fast on pit road, damage your car because of somebody else’s mistake, you’re done.
That said, there is no question that Larson’s team has been consistently better than everybody else during the playoff run. While the NASCAR Chase standings reflect this to some extent, the Old Guy Sport competition index, which rewards leading laps under green and top five finishes, shows just how dominant Larson is.
Since the playoff races began at Darlington, Larson has scored a whopping 258 points. Christopher Bell is next with 167 while Chase Briscoe, fourth in the NASCAR standings, has 166. Hamlin, though, has gone in the tank with just 60.
And Larson has really taken control by dominating on the intermediate tracks, NASCAR’s bread and butter and Toyota’s personal playground heading into the playoffs. Toyota won eight of the 10 intermediate races prior to the Chase, with Hamlin taking four of them, and also took 27 of the 50 top fives up for grabs, or more than half. Larson, meanwhile, had no wins and only four top fives.
But that changed beginning with Darlington. Since then, Larson has crushed Hamlin and Toyota. He has 214 points, including two wins, on intermediate tracks while Hamlin has struggled with just 56 points in the five races.
Speaking on USA TV after the race, Hamlin said his chances of putting some pressure on Larson disappeared with Gayle’s first stage call at Martinsville. “It just basically came down to stage one with us running the no-stop strategy,” Hamlin explained. “We obviously lost all our track position there and once we lost our track position it’s just hard to drive back to the front. Nobody else did.
Making things worse for Hamlin was an incident where Joey Logano got into Bell which pushed Bell into Hamlin. “We got some decent damage there,” Hamlin said.
“Obviously, we didn’t capitalize today (last Sunday) with Larson not getting any stage points and stuff like that,” Hamlin continued. “I just, the first stage was the killer for us, that set us back,” Hamlin repeated. “For us, this weekend (Martinsville) was about all or nothing.
“We had everything to gain and nothing to lose and we just didn’t gain enough to make it (catching Larson at Homestead) realistic. I feel confident I’ll be able to go there and contend,” Hamlin declared. “I’d love to get another win before the end of the year. I thought it was going to come today (last Sunday) but, you know, we’ll get one more shot at it next week.” And one more shot at a championship in 2027.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Homestead: 1-Christopher Bell, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winner at Homestead: Larson. Top five at Homestead last year: 1-Larson, 2-Alex Bowman, 3-Bubba Wallace, 4-Chase Briscoe, 5-Hamlin. (The Homestead race was not part of the Chase last year and was run early in the season.)
Last week’s Old Guy Sport picks: 1-Ryan Blaney, 2-Joey Logano, 3-Bell. Last week’s Martinsville winner: William Byron. OGS season record after 29 races, 13-16. (OGS does not counnt superspeedway races in its standings)
OGS competition index top 10 after 29 races: 1-Hamlin 625 points, 2-Bell 558, 3-Larson 541, 4-Briscoe 478, 5-Tyler Reddick 466, 6-Blaney 419, 7-Ty Gibbs 388, 8-Logano 319. 9-Chase Elliott 262, 10-Shane van Gisbergen 236.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Homestead): 1-Hamlin 475 points, 2-Larson 343, 3-Bell 325, 4-Briscoe 311, 5-Reddick 301, 6-Elliott 120, 7-Byron 119, 8-Blaney 111, 9-Bowman 80, 10-Austin Cindric 79.
by Patrick Zier | Nov 5, 2026 |
Florida has always had the talent. That’s never been the question. The potential is always there. Over the years, Florida has proven that when the pieces are put together right, as happened most recently with Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, this team can deliver a gut punch that will stagger anybody. In the SEC, other teams eye Florida like a smoking volcano, knowing it can erupt at any time and treading lightly when they are around it.
The problem is that in recent years, the eruptions have been few and far between. Jon Sumrall was hired to change that, to fix it, and he genuinely believes that he can. He is not overconfident, but he has a definite view of how the pieces fit and thought they could be put back in place fairly quickly, like even this year.
There appears to have been progress, but a lack of consistency has kept Florida from grabbing the top rung, from taking its place with Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Texas and maybe a couple others who annually fight for supremacy in what is, with apologies to no one, not the Big 10 or anyone else, the best conference in college football.
So what now? The season is winding down and Florida has no more statement games on its schedule and it will not win an SEC championship. But it saw what it’s like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the big boys. It tasted that respect when Ole Miss, then the No. 4 team in the country, came into Gainesville fresh off an extremely emotional win over LSU and staggered out of town after taking a 52-17 pounding from Florida.
And the next week, now ranked No. 8 nationally and with everybody pointing at the Gators and saying ‘watch out for those guys,’ Florida face planted at Missouri. And then it face planted again against South Carolina. The Ole Miss win was, it turned out, another brief moment of glory, something that was not sustainable.
With the Gators getting ready for Oklahoma, Sumrall reflected on all this at his weekly press conference as reported on Florida’s football website. Oklahoma is the first of the four games left to go. All are winnable but the Sooners and then Kentucky the following Saturday could be trouble, and Sumrall must get this team motivated and ready to play, or the bottom could fall out.
“Well, undefeated is clearly off the table but that has been for several weeks,” Sumrall began. “I told our team we’re 5-3 and 3-3 in the conference. I also told them we’ve got a lot left to play for. You know, we’re in a situation, as we enter November and November football, we haven’t had a winning SEC record here since 2020, I believe.
“We have a chance to do that and that’s a pretty substantial goal. It’s not like I’m comfortable just having a winning record, but we have to find ways to continue to grow as a program so that’s something to me and then look, we have to take it one day at a time,” Sumrall said. “We have 25-ish days left until the last regular season game.
“There’s a lot left to play for,” he repeated, “and I showed our team what that looks like. And to be honest with you, after you go into a game (Georgia) that’s as hyped up as last week’s was sometimes you wonder ‘man, how much gas is left in the tank emotionally?’
“It’s something I have to help them understand,” Sumrall commented. “It’s like guys, you sign up for the whole year and what does that look like? We got to finish this thing the right way. So there’s still, to me, a lot left to play for,” Sumrall said again. “And we have to have enough pride in ourselves to play hard no matter what’s out there.”
“How you finish matters,” he emphasized. “I think, as you look down this last stretch, we’ve got three conference games and a rivalry game (FSU) at the end. We need to finish strong to create some positive momentum as we go into the offseason.
“Just find a way to go 1-0 every week for the next four weeks and when you look up, who knows where you stand at that point in the chaos we’re all in in college football right now? Like if you can find your way to 9-3 at the end, man, there’s a lot of possibilities that can happen with what else is going on in the world.
“What we have to do a better job of is taking care of what’s right in front of us. I want to finish well, I want us to grow as a team and grow the program so that we can have a future here that goes ‘all right, we’re turning in the right direction and we’re about to get this thing really started,'” Sumrall said.
“I have championship expectations every day,” Sumrall went on. “We’re not there yet and that’s frustrating as hell but we’re going to get there, we are. I’m very confident of that.” Could be. But not this year.
