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.”
by Patrick Zier | Oct 2, 2026 |
The Toyotas have hit the wall. Hitting the wall in not a good thing anytime you’re running a race, but it’s especially bad this time of year when you’re chasing a NASCAR championship. Toyota, which once loomed above NASCAR like the Jolly Green Giant, appears to have finally been cut down to size by the competition.
Well, maybe we better rephrase that, because if you’re talking about Chevy and Ford, they’re kind of chasing Toyota with baby steps. But if you’re talking about Kyle Larson, that’s an entirely different matter. Because in the playoffs, Larson has become a one man wrecking crew, stomping on Toyota, Ford and even his Rick Hendrick teammates indiscriminately.
Larson’s sudden dominance hasn’t come out of nowhere. From the beginning of the season, when the Toyotas roared off and left everybody choking on their exhaust, Larson and Ford’s Ryan Blaney were doing what they could to keep pace. For Larson, it was a fourth here, a fifth there, a third on the road course at San Diego. Plus -and this is prophetic – a second in the first race at Kansas.
Still, like all the Chevys, Larson was struggling with the car’s redesigned body. And Ford? Well, Ford was just struggling, period. It was apparent, though, that compared to the other Chevys, Larson was struggling less, was closer to figuring things out and getting competitive.
But when the chase started, everyone expected Toyota’s superiority to continue. There was no light at the end of the tunnel until all of a sudden, here came Larson. He opened with a fifth at Darlington. Next, he won for the first time this season at St. Louis, an intermediate track. Then came a second at Bristol and, last Sunday, another win, this time at Kansas.
Winning at St. Louis and Kansas is particularly significant because the Toyotas had owned the intermediate tracks. Going into the first chase race at Darlington, Toyotas had won nine of the 11 intermediate track races to that point.
So now, with six races left to go in the season, Larson isn’t chasing the Toyotas, the Toyotas are chasing Larson. It’s a complete turnround. And if you look at the Old Guy Sport competition index, which is the best measure for judging competitiveness, Larson is in a class by himself.
In the four chase races, Larson has scored a whopping 203 points. For comparison purposes, that’s more than all four Joe Gibbs racing entries, which include season front-runner Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell, put together. Combined, they have 200 points. It’s also more than the four Penske entries (the Wood brothers car, which is essentially built by Penske, is included in this), who have 190 points combined. Larson is also the only driver to have finished in the top five in all four chase races.
And the three other Hendrick cars? Where are they? Well, you really have to search to find them, which proves this is not a Chevy thing and really all about Larson. In the four chase races so far, Alex Bowman has 40 points, William Byron 20 and Chase Elliott comes in with a big fat zero.
It may have been a long time coming, but clearly, Larson is back, even if Chevy isn’t. “It just seems like we were building and ready to kind of capitalize if we got a moment like this where our car and everything kind of came together.” Larson commented after the win at Kansas according to NASCAR’s website. “So just proud of everybody for working so hard for so long now, and then proud of just the execution that they’ve put in here these first four chase) races. We just got to try and keep it up,” Larson added.
Because the NASCAR point system rewards finishing more than racing and because it is designed to keep as many cars as possible in contention for as long as possible, Hamlin is still very much alive in the title chase, only 26 points behind Larson. That deficit could be wiped out in Sunday’s race at Las Vegas, another intermediate track. By the way, Hamlin still leads the OGS competition index with 604 points to Larson’s 486.
Larson knows it isn’t over. “There’s still six races left, and I only have, I think, a 26 point lead on Denny (in the NASCAR standings),” he said. “That could be swallowed up in a hurry. I gained 70 – I scored 76 points today (Sunday). So Denny could go have a max points day next week and I could blow an engine…and I’m down 70-some points right there.”
Still, considering where he was, the fact that Larson is now the man is surprising if not shocking. “Nobody wants to go through the struggle, but the struggle can be so constructive, if you let it be, if you lean in the right way,” Cliff Daniels, Larson’s crew chief, commented, also on NASCAR’s website.
“We have a great company with a lot of great people on the shop floor that are in the teams, engine shop, car shop, leadership,” Daniels said. “Everybody kind of had to check up. ‘Okay, we’re not where we need to be, so let’s not play the blame game. Let’s look within. How do we elevate our process? Our setups?’ Just digging into all the things you have to do,” Daniels said.
And guess what. There is light at the end of the tunnel after all.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Las Vegas Sunday: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Kyle Larson, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at Las Vegas (second race): Hamlin. Top five in second race last year: 1-Hamlin, 2-Larson, 3-Bell, 4-Chase Briscoe, 5-Tyler Reddick.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Kansas picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Reddick, 3-Bell. Kansas winner: Larson. OGS season record: 13-12.
OGS competition index top 10 after 25 races: 1-Hamlin 604 points, 2-Larson 486, 3-Bell 465, 4-Reddick 383, 5-Ty Gibbs 354, 6-Briscoe 340, 7-Ryan Blaney 330, 8-Joey Logano 308, 9-Shane van Gisbergen 226, 10-Chase Elliott 192.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most like Las Vegas): 1-Hamlin 458 points, 2-Larson 288, 3-Reddick 271, 4-Bell 266, 5-Briscoe 175, 6-Elliott 120, 7-William Byron 119, 8-Alex Bowman 80, 9-Corey Heim 78, 10-Logano 73.
by Patrick Zier | Sep 30, 2026 |
Florida has always had great expectations. It hasn’t always met them, but it has always had them. For the most part, the Gators have been mired in mediocrity, a so-so SEC team that pulled off an upset now and then but usually ended the season with a ho-hum .500 record or thereabouts.
For a while, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The Ray Graves era produced a 70-34-1 record including a 9-1-1 mark that was highlighted by an Orange Bowl win over SEC champion Tennessee, and of even more importance, introduced Florida fans to a brash young quarterback named Steve Spurrier, who left an indelible mark on the Gators as a player and, years later, would come back as a coach to take Florida to places it had never been before.
Spurrier is the longest tenured coach in Florida history, leading the team from 1990-2001, coaching 150 games and winning six SEC championships and one national title. That proved the Gators, with the right leadership and structure, could climb the highest mountains and maintain a pattern of excellence. Florida stumbled a bit right after Spurrier left, but quickly got back on track when it hired a relative unknown, Urban Meyer, to run the program. Over a five-year period, Meyer won a pair of SEC titles and two national championships, continuing to build on what Spurrier had started.
And then it all came tumbling down. Florida crashed back into mediocrity, and the Spurrier-Meyer years became just a memory. This was extremely frustrating for Florida Fans, who had seen the light and then watched as the program fell apart, with one coach after another trying to pick up the pieces and put them back together but unable to get the Gators out of the swamp.
This continued for 15 years after Meyer left until Scott Stricklin, Florida’s athletic director, turned to a successful Group of 6 coach, Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, after another Group of 6 coach, Billy Napier, became Florida’s latest failure, posting a 4-8 record in 2025.
Sumrall did not come on board without some controversy. Florida had reportedly made a big push to get Lane Kiffin, who bolted playoff bound Ole Miss and eventually wound up at LSU, and Sumrall stepped into the breach. But he immediately made an impression, brought new enthusiasm and energy to the program and didn’t really come off as a second choice.
And Sumrall took over a team that had a ton of talent, brought in some more and while people were talking about Georgia and Alabama and Texas A&M and Ole Miss and LSU and others in the SEC, everybody knew Florida had something going on if it could get its act together. And it did.
Speaking before the season started, Stricklin made the following observation as reported by the Gators’ football website. “He’s (Sumrall) obviously got great energy and kind of a can-do-it confidence that rubs off on people,” Stricklin said. “So, that’s No. 1. And I think he hired a really good staff, probably as good of a staff as we’ve had since, maybe since I’ve been here at UF. From a football standpoint, that’s critically important,” Stricklin commented.
Then all that was left was to wait, wait for the games to start and see whether or not Sumrall truly was the guy. Throwaway wins over Florida Atlantic and Campbell proved nothing, but then came Auburn, another team desperate to regain lost prestige, and Sumrall’s Gators established themselves with a 44-39 road win that, if nothing else, showed they had potential.
And last Saturday, it all came together. Ole Miss, fresh from getting revenge on Kiffin by whipping LSU and ranked No. 4 in the country, invaded Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and when the final seconds ticked away, Florida had a lopsided 52-28 victory.
Not that the Gators had gone unnoticed before beating Ole Miss. National observers were aware of the team’s talent and potential, and it was ranked 21st in the country after whipping Auburn. After beating Ole Miss, it is now eighth and there is talk that Florida may be a legitimate national title contender.
“A journey of a 1,000 miles starts with a single step, this was step one. The goal this week was to be 1-0 and now we go back to the drawing board,” Sumrall said after the Ole Miss win according to Florida’s football website. “I thought our guys came into the game with the right approach, the right mindset, but there’s a lot of things we’ve got to get a lot better at. We have high goals here,” Sumrall added.
“I’m excited about the direction we’re headed but we have not arrived yet,” he continued. “We have so much room to grow and get better and we have to do that. It’s got very little to do with me. I’m just the guy who tells everybody what direction to go and tries to make the standards really high.
“I’ve told them (the players) a million times good teams can be coached, great teams have to be led by the players. I feel like our player leadership is growing,” Sumrall went on. “I’m just proud they’re playing with confidence, edge, swagger and a little bit of demeanor about them to where we’re not going to bow down to anybody. I just want us to be good all the time.”
In just a few months, Sumrall has managed to flip Florida. Florida has changed from a team that should be good but wasn’t to one that is good and getting better. The Gators are no longer dormant. This is Spurrier’s Florida again with a slightly different vibe.
Florida is on its way to being relevant again. “We’re gonna get there,” Sumrall declared. “It’s coming. I promise you, I didn’t come here for us to be average.”
