by Patrick Zier | May 31, 2026 |
Realistically, Daniel Suarez had no shot at winning Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600 last Sunday. for the most part, he had been hanging around mid-pack, which is where most Spire Motorsports cars run most of the time.
The race had been dominated by a bunch of snarling Toyotas, four of them belonging to Joe Gibbs Racing and another driven by 23XI’s Tyler Reddick, who would end up leading 119 laps.
Combined, Reddick and the four JGR entries were up front for 289 of the race’s 373 laps, leaving the rest of the field just 84 to fight over with only 50 of those under green. It seems nobody can stop Toyota. Right now, they’re the Jolly Green Giant of NASCAR.
Meanwhile, pretty much unnoticed, Suarez was making slow but steady progress. And as the race unfolded and everybody started making their final pit stops, he began moving up.
According to Lapraptor.com’s analytics, Suarez was 21st On lap 329. As more cars came in for fuel and tires, he jumped to 17th on lap 333, 15th on lap 349. And when he pitted on 356, he had moved up to seventh.
By now, everyone was trying to factor in the weather. How long would the race go? Would the raindrops which had been mildly disruptive in the early going become a deluge at the end?
Reddick was leading, with the other Toyotas in tow, when Suarez pitted. And then Ryan Sparks, Suarez’ crew chief, decided to make a move. With nothing to lose, he put two tires on instead of four, allowing Suarez to get back on the track ahead of Reddick and take the lead.
Now, it was wait-and-see. If the storms held off and the race went green most of the rest of the way, Suarez was a dead duck. With all the Toyotas and almost everybody else on four fresh tires instead of two, they would swarm past Suarez and he would be lucky to finish 10th.
“I don’t know, something in the back of my head told me to just go ahead and put on two,” Sparks said according to NASCAR’s website. “I kind of looked and saw what everybody else had for tires in front of us, and I figured there was going to be a good opportunity for us to be first or second. Just wanted to get that clean air and give ourselves a chance,” he added.
Still, if the race stayed green and he had to go any distance, Suarez was in trouble. With all the Toyotas behind him faster and on four tires, he needed yellow flags. Yellow flags, and rain.
Coming out of the pits, Suarez caught his first break. The race was under caution because of rain, and it stayed that way for three laps. It went green again on lap 360, but as the Toyotas started to close on Suarez, it went back to caution on 362.
The rain had become a little more steady, and the field slowly circled the track for eight more laps. Back to green on 370, with the Toyotas side-by-side and battling each other instead of Suarez.
Then, on 373, the skies above the speedway opened up. Red flag for rain with Suarez in front. No way to dry the track. Game, set, match. Sparks’ gamble had paid off, big time.
So what does this tell us about Spire Motorsports? Is this the little engine that could? One of several nondescript Cup teams finally breaking out of anonymity? Or is this just a one-time thing?
Spire was started by Jeff Dickerson in 2019, with Rick Hendrick serving as a consultant and providing engines for the team. In just its first year, with Justin Haley driving, Spire won Daytona’s Coke Zero Sugar 400.
It then went winless until this season, when highly touted Carson Hocevar won at Talladega. Hocevar got a ton of attention for his victory celebration, which had him hanging out the driver’s side window while doing burnouts and circling the track.
Just 23 and extremely aggressive on the track, Hocevar drew comparisons to Dale Earnhardt, which seemed a bit premature. And with Suarez now winning at Charlotte, some are ready to crown Spire as the next big thing in Cup.
But that’s likely a bridge too far. At this point. Spire still hasn’t done much. Two of its three wins are on superspeedways, where anybody can win.
Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s biggest and most important event, when he was just 20 years old and had only run two Cup races in his entire career. He was driving for the Wood brothers, a tired team well past its glory days at the time.
If you strip away the superspeedways and Suarez’s win in the rain-shortened Charlotte race, nothing leads you to believe Spire will be the next 23XI.
Hocevar’s best finish this year, outside of the superspeedways, is a fourth at Darlington and he has only two in the top 10. Suarez’s best before Charlotte was a sixth at Texas and if you throw out his fifth at Atlanta, another superspeedway, he has just three top 10s counting Charlotte.
Spire’s third driver is veteran Michael McDowell, who once won the Daytona 500 and is pretty good on road courses. This year, he has two top 10s, a fifth on Austin’s road course and a second at Watkins Glen.
So Spire looks like a paper tiger, although Sparks says they’re on their way. It was tough, he said, when the Next Gen car came out and Spire was working out of a beat up building near Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“We all slept in the shop,” Sparks commented. “There were 20 of us working on two Cup teams each and every week and it was a grind. We’ve had a steady progression since then.
“And you’re seeing the results. We’ve been building this thing for five years. Nobody believed in us until Hocevar put us on the map at Talladega and now Daniel (Suarez) at Charlotte. Eventually, they’re going to take us seriously,” Sparks declared.
Problem is, everybody that’s not with Gibbs, Hendrick, Penske or now 23XI has been saying that for years and of all the second-tier teams out there, only 23XI has made it stick.
Especially in racing, it’s easy to talk about reaching lofty goals. But talking about what you’re going to do and then actually doing it, well, that’s two different things.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Nashville: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at Nashville: Ryan Blaney. Top five at Nashville last year: 1-Blaney, 2-Carson Hocevar, 3-Hamlin, 4-Joey Logano, 5-William Byron.
Old Guy Sport’s Charlotte picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Reddick, 3-Chase Elliott. Charlotte winner: Dennis Suarez. OGS season record, 5-5.
OGS competition index top 10 after 10 races: 1-Reddick 274, Hamlin 274; 3-Bell 172, 4-Elliott 166, 5-Ty Gibbs 163, 6-Kyle Larson 161, 7-Blaney 144, 8-Shane van Gisbergen 116, 9-Chase Briscoe 70, 10-Brad Keselowski 63.
OGS competition index on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Nashville): 1-Hamlin 198, 2-Reddick 169, 3-Elliott 105, 4-Bell 81, 5-Larson 78, 6-Keselowski 63, 7-Suarez 51, 8-Briscoe 36, 9-Byron 34, 10-Blaney 32.
by Patrick Zier | May 23, 2026 |
Kyle Busch probably didn’t think much about it. Sinus infections can be irritating, but drivers fight through this kind of stuff all the time. Colds. The flu. Upset stomachs.
It’s not going to keep you out of your car. If it’s bad enough, you may need an IV after the race, treatment of some kind, but you’re not getting out of your car. You race because, well, that’s what drivers do. They race.
So, Busch ran the Cup race at Watkins Glen and, over the radio, requested that a team physician give him a shot when it was over. It did not sound like he was in any major distress. He was told the physician would meet him at his bus and that seemed to be the end of it.
Actually, from a competitive standpoint, it was a very good day for Busch. He finished eighth, his best showing of the season. A few days later he was in Dover, where he won the truck race and then finished 17th in the All-Star event. If anything was still wrong, it seemed to be minor and under control.
And then it all fell apart. Wednesday, Busch was testing in the Chevy racing simulator at Concord, N.C., looking ahead to the Memorial Day race in Charlotte, when he began having difficulty breathing.
A 9-1-1 call was made and an unresponsive Busch was taken to the hospital. Busch’s family then issued a statement saying he would not run Charlotte’s Memorial Day race and had cancelled all his activities because of “a severe illness resulting in hospitalization.”
Busch’s car owner, Richard Childress, followed that with a release that said “Kyle Busch’s health is our utmost priority and he and his family have the full resources of RCR behind them.
“Kyle is an integral part of our organization and we wish him a safe and speedy recovery. His No. 8 Chevrolet will be ready and waiting for him. We’re thankful to Austin Hill for stepping in to drive the No. 8 Chevrolet this weekend.
“Please keep Kyle and the Busch family in your prayers and help us respect the family’s privacy at this time,” the release concluded.
Then came Thursday, and the announcement that stunned the entire NASCAR community as well as others in motorsports around the world.
“On behalf of the Busch family, Richard Childress Racing and all of NASCAR, we are devastated to announce the sudden and tragic passing of Kyle Busch,” the release began. “NASCAR lost a giant of the sport today (Thursday), far too soon,” it concluded. Shockingly, Kyle Busch had died.
Saturday, the family said Busch contracted a severe case of pneumonia that triggered sepsis, which attacks the body’s vital organs.
Longtime teammate and sometimes rival Denny Hamlin summed up the thoughts of almost everybody. “I absolutely cannot comprehend this news,” he said.
Joe Gibbs Racing, where Busch spent most of his career, also issued a statement. “Kyle was a fierce competitor, an incredible teammate, and, far more importantly, a devoted father, husband and son. His impact on our organization and on the sport of NASCAR will never be forgotten,” the JGR release read in part.
While his talent is undeniable, Busch was probably the most physically gifted driver in NASCAR, his often belligerent, confrontational attitude toward NASCAR, other drivers and even the fans shaped the way he was perceived.
When he was winning, Busch’s standard victory celebration was to bow to the grandstand while sweeping the checkered flag in front of him, usually to a resounding chorus of boos.
Busch was considered a phenom when he came up in his late teens and quickly advanced to Cup as a development driver for Hendrick, wining his first cup race when he was just 20 years old.
But Hendrick fired him to make room for Dale Earnhardt Jr., a source of contention between the two for many years, and Busch hooked up with Gibbs.
In his first year with JGR, Busch won eight races, and he won at least once every year he was there.
But after the 2022 season, Busch, then 37, and Gibbs couldn’t agree on a contract extension. Caught between a rock and a hard place, there were no openings on the other elite teams, Hendrick and Penske, Busch signed with Richard Childress Racing, which had become a second tier operation.
At the time, many thought Busch had been pushed out the door by Gibbs to make room for his grandson, Ty Gibbs, who was considered an emerging talent and was ready to race Cup.
The loss of his ride at Gibbs couldn’t have come at a worse time for Busch, who had to cope with NASCAR’s introduction of the Next Gen car while he was adjusting to a team which lacked the resources and quality personnel at JGR.
The Next Gen car was introduced in 2022, Busch’s last year with Gibbs, and he did okay with it, finishing ninth with 270 points in the Old Guy Sport competition index. The OGS competition index is used to measure competitiveness rather than the NASCAR point standings because NASCAR’s standings are based on finishing races, not competing in them.
In 2023, Busch’s first year with RCR, he improved to seventh in the OGS standings with three wins and 314 points. But that was an anomaly. When the Next Gen car hit the track, teams could do almost nothing to modify it.
And because the cars were virtually all the same, the best drivers got the best results, and Busch was one of the best drivers. But by 2024, the elite teams, JGR, Hendrick and Penske, with their superior analytics, engineering and technology, were figuring out ways to improve the car, and RCR fell behind.
In 2024, Busch dropped to 17th in the OGS competition index with just 99 points. Last year, the number fell to 48, good for the 22nd spot. And through the first nine races of this year, RCR hasn’t scored a single point (OGS does not count the superspeedway races, Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega, because luck is the primary factor in determining how well you run there.)
On top of that, Busch had trouble adapting to the Next Gen car. “It’s probably hurt me more than it’s helped me,” he admitted before his death. And the numbers back him up. He was going no place at RCR. There was going to be no return to greatness.
At the time of the tragic illness that ended his life, Busch had gone a staggering 141 races without a win. At one point this year, he ran five races in a row where he finished 20th or worse. In his entire career, Busch had never gone five races in a row finishing that low. And he had led just 19 laps this season.
In today’s world, a driver is only as good as his car, and Busch’s cars, in the last years of his life, were not very good, with little indication they were going to get any better.
But that does not take anything away from what he did in NASCAR. Kyle Busch was one of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport. He proved that.
Over the course of his career, he won 69 truck races, more than anybody. He also won 102 races in the O’Reilly series, a step below Cup and again, that’s more than anybody. And his 63 Cup wins are ninth all-time, although he will probably be overtaken by Hamlin, who currently has 61.
Still, his 234 wins across all NASCAR divisions is the best ever, and his records are always going to be there. Nothing that happened at RCR will ever change that.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Charlotte: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Chase Elliott. Last year’s winner in first race at Charlotte: Ross Chastain.
Top five in first race at Charlotte last year: 1-Chastain, 2-William Byron, 3-Chase Briscoe, 4-A.J. Almendinger, 5-Brad Keselowski.
Watkins Glen Old Guy Sport picks: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Reddick. Watkins Glen winner: van Gisbergen. Season record, 5-4.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Reddick 240 points, 2-Hamlin 236, 3-Elliott 166, 4-Ty Gibbs 162, 5-Kyle Larson 150, 6-Ryan Blaney 144, 7-Bell 128, 8-van Gisbergen 116, 9-Briscoe 66, 10-Keselowski.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most like Charlotte): 1-Hamlin 160 points, 2-Reddick 135, 3-Elliott 105, 4-Larson 67, 5-Keselowski 63, 6-Bell 37, 7-Byron 34, 8-Blaney 32, Briscoe 32, 10-Alex Bowman 30.
by Patrick Zier | May 17, 2026 |
It wasn’t football or basketball. It was a minor sport that few people care about. If it has a public following, It’s mostly in the Northeast. But what happened to South Florida’s women’s lacrosse team is a cautionary tale that shows what a steep climb USF has if it hopes to get into a Power 4 conference.
The USF women finished the regular season 12-5 with all their losses to nationally ranked opponents. They were 17th in RPI, a ranking based on winning percentage and strength of schedule, and 24th in the ESPN coaches poll. Playing for the AAC conference championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA tourney, the Bulls won their semifinal game but then lost to James Madison in the final.
And that did it. By almost any competitive measure you want to use, USF deserved to get an at-large bid. “This USF team is the most complete team from top to bottom I’ve ever coached,” Mindy McCord declared, a remarkable statement when you consider USF has only had a lacrosse program for two years.
But none of that mattered when it came time to pick the tourney teams. USF’s record didn’t matter. It’s national ranking didn’t matter. It’s competitiveness didn’t matter.
It didn’t get in. Penn State got in. So did Boston College, Rutgers and Yale. All were far less deserving and ranked well below the Bulls. But they all had something USF doesn’t have. They are brand names. They have a national identity, primarily because they are all Power 4 conference teams.
In today’s sports world, television rules. And, particularly when we are talking about nationally televised events, television wants as many eyeballs as it can get. So, deserving or not, USF was out and Penn State, Boston College and Rutgers were in.
Image and brand name matter. In 2025, Memphis, like USF a member of the AAC, tried to buy its way into the Big 12. Particularly in football, Memphis has a solid resume for a Group of 6 team, and it made the Big 12 a tremendous offer.
Let us in, Memphis said, and we will give you $200 million. Memphis has two powerhouse boosters, FedEx and Lowe’s, who were ready to pony up the cash.
Additionally, Memphis said it would take no money from the conference for five years and agreed to an expulsion clause which allowed the Big 12 to drop Memphis if it felt the school would negatively affect its next TV contract. In effect, the worst case scenario for the Big 12 was that it would get a free $200 million. But the Big 12 still said no.
The Big 12 has a history with Group of 6 teams and the AAC in particular. When Oklahoma and Texas left for the SEC, the Big 12 was decimated. Its status as a Power 4 conference (at the time a Power 5 conference, the Pac 12 had not yet dissolved) was threatened.
So, the Big 12 moved to strengthen itself by adding Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida from the American in addition to Brigham Young, an independent.
For years, The American has been claiming parity with the other power conferences, claiming it ought to be recognized as one of them based on sporadic wins over a few power conference teams.
And the three AAC teams moving up were among the strongest in the Group of 6. Cincinnati had become the first Group of 6 team to make the College Football Playoffs. Houston was the first Group of 6 team ever to sign a five star recruit. UCF had gotten a smattering of first place votes after a 12-0 season and Peach Bowl win over seventh ranked Auburn.
Despite that, none of the teams added to the Big 12 from the American had any national credibility. They were all perceived as mid-majors and as such, hurt the Big 12’s image.
In their first two years of Big 12 competition, the three teams from the American posted a 9-33 record against established Big 12 teams, proving that there was indeed a huge gap between the power conferences and the Group of six.
USF has to overcome that perception if it wants to get in a Power 4 conference, and it’s making a real effort to do that. New athletic facilities, including a stadium, are going up left and right.
Under the House vs. NCAA settlement, which allows college teams to pay up to $20.5 million a year to players, the American has asked its members to get to at least $10 million by 1928. USF says its goal is to pay out the full amount, $20.5 million.
On the field, USF has improved its football team and that improvement should continue under new coach Brian Hartline, but that will mean little with a Group of 6 schedule although if it plays well enough, South Florida could get a bid to the CFP which would give the program some stature.
Still, what this boils down to is television money and what the SEC and Big Ten, who control college football, decide to do. As TV contracts expire, the Big 12’s is first in 2031, there could be some realignment.
Clemson, Florida State and Miami want out of the ACC in the worst way and if the Big Ten and SEC feel they would add value to their television contracts, both leagues could expand with some other ACC teams coming along.
If that were to happen, then the ACC would be in the same position as the Big 12 when Oklahoma and Texas left and be forced to add mid-majors like USF to replace the departing schools.
And South Florida is positioning itself to be right at the top of the list. But if the Big Ten and SEC don’t expand, then USF will be stuck in time, a program with power conference credentials unable to find a new home.
by Patrick Zier | May 10, 2026 |
After Hendrick’s Chase Elliott won his second race of the season (his best start ever, by the way) at Texas last week, Jeff Gordon, now vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, was asked how many Cup cars he thought could win races on a regular basis.
He really didn’t know, he could only guess, but it was probably around 12, Gordon replied according to the NASCAR media website. That makes sense. It covers all the entries on NASCAR’s three elite teams – Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Penske Racing.
Others have tried to get to their level, but they have all crashed and burned with one exception – Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XI.
For a while, many thought Trackhouse would pull it off. But the team’s promising start has hit a brick wall, with its only real strength Shane van Gisbergen’s prowess on road courses.
After Brad Keselowski left Penske to inject new life into RFK (Roush-Fenway-Keselowski), it was thought they might make it but that hasn’t worked out, either, with the team stuck in neutral at best.
And then there’s Richard Childress Racing, which once had elite status when Dale Earnhardt was its primary driver but which has become mediocre, many would say less then that, in recent years despite the presence of a top talent in Kyle Busch.
That leaves 23XI as the only possible challenger, and led by Tyler Reddick, it is moving up. It needs more depth, but it has the necessary ingredients to make the big three the big four if it can keep improving.
“It’s really hard to put a number on it,” Gordon said in terms of trying to determine the number of cars with a chance to consistently run up front. “There’s a lot of strong teams that are very competitive, and this series is competitive. These cars are very close.
“I still think the best teams rise to the top. And so if you asked me about that, I would say the number gets lower because of full-team execution. It starts to separate you, from pit stops to the fine details.”
In fact, it turns out Gordon was right about that last point. Most teams simply don’t have the quality engine builders, technicians, shock specialists, etc. to compete week in and week out with the very best.
If you use the Old Guy Sport competition index as a gauge, and it’s a better indicator than the NASCAR point standings because it measures how teams and drivers perform, not how they finish, which is the main criteria for NASCAR, then there are just five drivers, not 12, who stand out.
They are Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell and Reddick. Since 2024, they have won 37 of the 68 races, 54 percent, used to compile the OGS competition index. OGS does not count the superspeedway races (Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega ) because luck, not driver or team performance, determines the outcome in those events.
And not only do they win the majority of races, they consistently lead in OGS points. In 2024 they took five of the first six spots with Larson winning the championship, Bell second and Hamlin third. Only William Byron broke into the top six from outside the group.
In 2025 they won four of the top five positions with Hamlin first, Larson second and Blaney third. Chase Briscoe was the lone outsider. Reddick was an anomaly, finishing 12th after facing a myriad of problems.
Currently, after eight races, Hamlin is the leader with Reddick second, Larson fourth, Bell fifth and Blaney sixth. Elliott holds down the third spot.
And it doesn’t seem likely that anything will change between now and the end of the season. Once again, the ‘Fab Five’ is firmly in control.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Watkins Glen: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Tyler Reddick. Last year’s winner at Watkins Glen: van Gisbergen. Last year’s top 5 at Watkins Glen: 1-van Gisbergen, 2-Bell, 3-Chris Buescher, 4-William Byron, 5-Chase Briscoe.
Last week’s OGS Texas picks: 1-Ryan Blaney, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Kyle Larson. Texas winner: Chase Elliott. OGS season record after eight races: 4-4.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Hamlin 236 points, 2-Reddick 230, 3-Elliott 166, 4-Kyle Larson 150, 5-Blaney 144, 6-Bell 128, 7-Ty Gibbs 123, 8-Brad Keselowski 63, 9-Byron 46, Briscoe 46.
OGS competition index top 10 on road courses (tracks most similar to Watkins Glen) 1-Reddick 75 points, 2-van Gisbergen 41, 3-Bell 30, 4-Gibbs 22, 5-Michael McDowell 15, 6-Briscoe 4, 7-Ross Chastain 2, 8-Byron 1.
by Patrick Zier | May 5, 2026 |
(This is the first of a two-part series on the hurdles USF faces as it tries to get into a Power Four conference.)
Almost from the day it played its first game against Kentucky Wesleyan in 1997, there has never been much question about where South Florida wanted to go. The only question was, could it get there?
As a major state university in one of the biggest TV markets in the country and with the potential to recruit top high school talent, playing in a Power Five, now Power Four, conference seemed a reasonable goal.
But 1997, and the ensuing years that followed it, was very different than the chaotic state of affairs that exists in college sports now. Then, there were some guidelines, now, there are none.
No one can tell you, with any certainty, what college football will look like next year or the year after that, what you will need to do to compete at the highest level.
One thing is certain, though. However college football reinvents itself, money will be a major factor, maybe almost limitless amounts of money. And if that becomes the case, will college football even survive?
College athletics is gradually becoming more of a business then a sport, with the funding of revenue producing programs, primarily football and to some extent basketball, the key to preventing a total collapse.
Already, it now costs almost $40 million to field a top tier college football team, $10 million or more for basketball. And those numbers are only going to rise.
The House vs. NCAA settlement agreed on last year allows teams to pay up to $20.5 million to players, with that number expected to increase over time. And that doesn’t include NIL (name, image, likeness) money.
There are supposed to be guidelines to control NIL, but nobody pays any attention to them. So the cash going into those deals depends solely on the amount of money supporters of the various schools are willing to spend.
As a result, the richest schools are going to have the best teams, because the foundation for most college football programs is signing the best “free agents,” players in the transfer portal going from one school to another. And the way to get the best players is to pay them more than they can get anyplace else.
That has made finding new revenue streams the top priority for almost all college athletic directors. One potential source of revenue, which is now permitted by the NCAA, is selling uniform patches.
Companies and corporations pay to have their logo put on a school’s team uniform, and if it’s a big enough brand, this can bring in millions for the college or university involved.
For example, LSU has a seven-year deal with Woodside Energy that pays it at least $10 million a year. Even Group of Six teams are getting in on the action.
South Florida has hooked up with Tampa General Hospital, which has become heavily integrated with USF athletics, on a multi-year partnership to have its logo on the Bulls’ uniforms.
Financial details were not disclosed, but UNLV, another Group of Six team, signed a five-year, $11 million contract with Acesso Biologics and the Tampa General Hospital-USF arrangement is probably pretty similar.
There is another source of revenue that teams and conferences can choose to exploit, but which most have chosen to stay away from because it is highly controversial, and that’s investment from private equity firms.
These institutions can make huge sums of money available to teams and conferences for use in strengthening their athletic programs and could enable them to be more competitive, even some at the highest level.
The problem is that private equity firms expect a return on investment, and if a team of a conference is unable to pay the money back – with interest – the firms might demand a say in how the team or conference is run.
Despite this, the Big 12 recently became the first conference to accept private equity money, agreeing to a five year partnership with Redbird that provides $12.5 million up front to the conference and extends a $30 million line of credit to each of the conference’s 16 teams.
While it has not said anything publicly, the Big 12 is the target Power Four conference for USF because its television contract is the first to expire in 2031, but before the Big 12 or any other Power Four conference even thinks about expansion, the out-of-control financial morass all colleges and universities find themselves in will have to be resolved.
(Next: For USF, will bigger really be that much better?)
