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?)
