Ranking Every Post-Leavitt USF Football Season (Part 2)

Welcome back to our ranking of every post-Jim Leavitt USF football season! If you missed part one, we’re offering a quick summary of each season, plus the season’s top highlight, worst lowlight, and an offensive and defensive MVP. You can catch up on our ranking of seasons 16 through 9 below:

Ranking Every Post-Leavitt USF Football Season (Part 1)

Today, we’ll be continuing the countdown with seasons 8 through 4, then we’ll wrap up next week with the top three seasons. For your continued reference, you can find our Official Project Q&A below.

Q: OK, first off. Why?

A: Because it’s been a month without USF football and I’m sad. Also, Alex Golesh’s departure marks the end of an era, so it feels like a proper time to look back on where this program has been. Mostly that I’m sad, though.

Q: Why are you instituting an arbitrary cutoff after the Leavitt years?

A: Extending this ranking all the way back to 1997 would make it way too unwieldy. Sticking to the 16 post-Leavitt seasons feels like a clean cutoff point, especially given that USF has spent this time at a relatively stable level of competition in the American (Athletic) Conference and the late-stage Big East. Think of it like this: when Leavitt was fired, many USF fans saw it as a much-needed fresh start and a chance for the Bulls to propel themselves into a higher echelon of the sport. Part of this exercise is going to be examining how successful USF was in making that happen (hint: super duper unsuccessful).

Q: What exactly is the formula for ranking seasons?

A: Mostly vibes? In seriousness, I tried to put myself back into the mindset I was in when I experienced these seasons for the first time. How much would I want to relive those feelings? To be clear, we’re focusing on ranking the seasons, rather than how good the teams were. Some pretty good USF teams have produced pretty rough seasons, and vice versa.

#8: 2014 (4-8, 3-5 in conference)

Summary: Some might find it strange that a 4-8 season ends up in the top half of this countdown, but (a) we’re not exactly evaluating Picassos, here, and (b) time has been very kind to the 2014 season. Make no mistake, though: Willie Taggart’s second year with the Bulls was a slog, one that repeated most of the sins of the dreadful 2013 season before it. The Bulls were still an absolute mess on offense, and Taggart’s carousel at quarterback prevented any of the team’s signal-callers from staking a permanent claim to the job. Their modestly-improved win total was viewed less as a sign of progress and more the product of a softer schedule and sheer inertia. The season has been somewhat redeemed, however, by the fact that it served as the fanbase’s first introduction to several young Taggart recruits who would eventually become program heroes. To name a few: Quinton Flowers, Marlon Mack, D’Ernest Johnson, Rodney Adams, Deadrin Senat, and Deatrick Nichols all played their first snaps in 2014, and each of them offered glimpses of the considerable talents they would display in the coming years. From that angle, the 2014 season can be viewed as more of an oddly-shaped building block than the abject failure it seemed at the time. Maybe.

Highlight: Many would consider a five-point win over an FCS team to be a lowlight. Not this season! One quarter into the USF’s season opener against lowly Western Carolina, the Bulls trailed 14-3 and fans were beginning to fear a second straight FCS loss. With offense sputtering, Taggart turned to one of his prized recruits - true freshman running back Marlon Mack - and the rest is history. Mack took 24 carries for an astounding 275 yards, matching the school record at the time, and scored four times to lead a USF comeback and avert absolute disaster. Though the win was appreciated, Mack’s performance was more significant for what it represented: the ascendance of Taggart’s excellent recruiting classes, and the hope that they could save the program. Boy, could they!

Lowlight: It was not even close to the Bulls’ worst performance of the season, but the 16-0 shutout loss to UCF in the season finale could best be described as a wet fart. Taggart rotated quarterbacks to no effect, had absolutely nothing working on offense, and suffered a second straight loss to the Bulls’ newly minted rivals. Taggart’s fortunes in Tampa would soon change for the better, but it cannot be overemphasized how warm his seat was entering year three.

Offensive MVP: Andre Davis was once again doing yeomen’s work as one of very few capable receiving targets. Nevertheless, the answer here has to be Mack. His 1,000-yard true freshman campaign was a lifeline for Bulls fans desperate for a game-breaking running back ever since Andre Hall’s departure.

Defensive MVP: This feels like an appropriate place to give a shoutout to the terminally underrated Jamie “Angry” Byrd, a heat-seeking missile of a safety who served as a prototype for today’s popular linebacker/safety hybrids. Plenty of blitz-happy USF DBs like Daquan Evans, Tawfiq Byard and Jarvis Lee have since followed in Byrd’s footsteps.

#7: 2024 (7-6, 4-4 in conference)

Summary: A Rorschach test for one’s optimism as a USF fan, the 2024 season can reasonably be viewed as either a coaching masterclass or an infuriating near-disaster. At any rate, both sides of the debate can agree that it wasn’t a fun watch. Expectations were sky high following the Bulls’ stunning run to a bowl game in Alex Golesh’s debut season; thanks to Golesh’s coaching chops and the return of star quarterback Byrum Brown, many analysts tabbed the Bulls as a dark horse College Football Playoff contender. But the train derailed midseason: in the midst of a shocking blowout against Tulane in the Bulls’ conference opener, Brown went down with a gruesome injury. What followed was a strange game of will-they-won’t-they in which the USF coaching staff - presumably in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage - opted not to reveal that Brown was out for the season, instead forcing fans to decipher coachspeak each week to determine if the team’s best player would be returning to the field. This earned Golesh few favors among the fanbase - but to his credit, he did a respectable job of navigating the Bulls through a 2-4 start, an unexpected relocation due to Hurricane Milton, and uninspiring backup quarterback play to get back to bowl eligibility. An impressive season, perhaps, but not an inspiring one.

Highlight: There were a few fun games down the stretch in which the Bulls’ running game overwhelmed some lower-tier American Conference foes - but as far as sheer entertainment goes, the Hawaii Bowl against San Jose State takes the cake. Late on Christmas Eve, USF fans were treated to an early present as the Bulls out-dueled the Spartans in a five-overtime thriller. The game was the perfect cherry on top of a bizarre, up-and-down season: the Bulls raced out to a 21-7 lead, fell behind in the fourth quarter, staged a furious late comeback to send the game to overtime, and finally survived a series of penalties and gaffes in the decisive two-point conversion shootout. Those on the east coast who decided to start their Christmas early by staying up past midnight were justly rewarded.

Lowlight: USF’s much-ballyhooed showdown against Tulane could hardly have gone any worse. These days the game is mostly remembered for Brown’s injury, but that conveniently skips over the fact that even with Brown, the Bulls were down 31-0 before halftime. For a team that had its sights set on a conference championship, it was another entry in a long list of midseason meltdowns.

Offensive MVP: On an offense starved for playmakers after Brown’s injury, Sean Atkins was a security blanket for second-string quarterback Bryce Archie. Atkins averaged over seven catches per game over the last six games of the season, and ended the year as USF’s all-time leader in receiving yards. It was a cherry on top of a fairy-tale career for the former walk-on.

Defensive MVP: Together, Mac Harris and Jhalyn Shuler formed one of the more fearsome linebacker duos for a USF program with a long history of impressive ‘backers. Harris led the charge in 2024, leading the team in tackles (82), TFLs (12), and sacks (four).

#6: 2023 (7-6, 4-4 in conference)

Summary: This feels like too low a placement for one of the most delightful surprises in program history, but we’re moving into the top tier now. In the wake of Jeff Scott’s one FBS win in three seasons, even the most optimistic USF fan would have been willing to grant Alex Golesh a proverbial “year zero” in his first season in Tampa. But behind future star quarterback Byrum Brown and a delightfully ragtag bunch, Golesh and the Bulls eclipsed all reasonable expectations and returned to the postseason for the first time in a half-decade. After a few early-season losses in which the Bulls showed some spark (particularly a hard-fought 17-3 loss to Nick Saban’s final Alabama squad), the vaunted Golesh passing offense erupted in a way that a passing offense had never really erupted at USF before, and the Bulls recorded their first-ever 3,000-yard passer (Brown) and 1,000-yard receiver (Sean Atkins) en route to six regular-season wins. The one demerit keeping it at number six: I would hesitate to classify this team as actually good. The ‘23 Bulls admittedly benefitted from a very forgiving schedule and suffered some major slip-ups along the way (see: humbling back-to-back blowouts against conference newbies UAB and FAU). But focusing on the shortcomings here would be joyless; this season was a delight.

Highlight: “We just went and whupped that ass, didn’t we?” As the final games of the year, bowl games have a way of earning outsized importance in comparison to the twelve preceding games in the regular season. Naturally, then, USF’s unexpected 45-0 drubbing of Syracuse in the Boca Raton Bowl suddenly changed the season’s narrative from “pleasant surprise” to “unqualified success.” The Orange’s coaching change and subsequent transfer portal entries no doubt played a role in their incompetence here, but it was nonetheless fans’ first time experiencing a Golesh-led USF team clicking on all cylinders - a thrilling harbinger of things to come.

Lowlight: This season - and the Golesh era at large - was so enjoyable that the Bulls’ brutal 56-14 home loss to a mediocre FAU team has largely been memory-holed. Thank goodness for that, because this loss was bad. Despite the Owls’ impressive ascendance to the American Conference, USF has politely declined to embrace them as any sort of rival, and this game felt like a punishment for the Bulls’ hubris. FAU ran the Bulls out of their own stadium in the second half, and punctuated the embarrassment with a successful onside kick while up 42 points. It sparked some justifiable panic among the Bulls’ fanbase about where exactly their program stood in the in-state hierarchy - fears that Alex Golesh would blessedly quell in the following seasons.

Offensive MVP: Byrum Brown showed hints of his considerable talents during the last few games of 2022, but even the most optimistic of USF fans likely weren’t expecting a 3,000/800 stat line in his first full season as a starter. Brown took a few games to find himself as a passer, but once he settled in, he blossomed into one of USF’s most exciting signal-callers in the program’s short history. Most impressive of all was his running ability; at 6’3” and over 230 pounds, it did not seem physically possible for Brown to move as fast as he did. In all, a fantastic debut season for a future program legend.

Defensive MVP: In the offseason, then-senior Daquan Evans was asked to move from a traditional defensive back role to Todd Orlando’s free-roaming, blitz-happy nickel back position. He made the change and played like a man possessed, racking up 14 tackles for loss and four sacks. His performance on national television against Alabama is one of the best in Bulls’ history: he regularly raced past blue-chipper linemen and tormented the Tide’s quarterbacks to the tune of eight tackles, four TFLs and three sacks.

#5: 2010 (8-5, 3-4 in conference)

Summary: The following years have painted the 2010 Bulls as a bit of a flash in the pan - or at least revealed that many of the obstacles that they overcame were self-enforced - but at the time, this group felt like a triumphant underdog story. After Jim Leavitt’s ugly dismissal in the early offseason, USF appointed Skip Holtz as the second head coach in program history. The hope was that Holtz could serve as something of a foil to his predecessor: the defensive-minded Leavitt was a powder keg in a human suit whose teams were unstable and prone to midseason collapse, whereas the jovial Holtz was an even-keeled figure whose ECU teams were impressive on offense. Unfortunately, Holtz’s first Bulls team lost a number of starting receivers to injury over the offseason and ill-advisedly attempted to force B.J. Daniels, an electric athlete at quarterback, into an under-center, pro-style offense, and the result was an brutal 0-2 start in Big East play in which the Bulls totaled 15 points. But right when fans had resigned themselves to the idea of a rebuilding year, the team clicked. Behind one of the best defenses in school history and a scrappy group of projected second-stringers on offense, the Bulls went on a 5-2 tear to end the season, including legendary wins over Miami and Clemson. At this point, many believed that Holtz was the program’s savior - the man who would finally put a permanent end to Leavitt’s signature October swoons and deliver the Bulls’ first conference title. That, of course, did not happen, but that’s not the fault of this feisty, undermanned squad.

Highlight: The second half of the season was characterized by low-scoring rock fights in which Mark Snyder’s excellent defense held the opposition at bay while the Bulls’ offense hoped for a miracle from any of their motley crew of backups. No game fit this bill better than the Bulls’ delightfully odd 23-20 overtime upset of Miami. The Bulls crept out to an early lead, then lost Daniels to an injury and slowly fell behind 17-10 over the course of the second half as the offense cratered. But with just a few minutes to go, walk-on freshman quarterback Bobby Eveld proceeded to lead one of the most improbable drives in USF history. Eveld launched prayer after prayer to senior receiver Dontavia Bogan, who singlehandedly flustered the Canes’ defensive backs and set up the game-tying touchdown on an Eveld sneak. After the Bulls held Miami to a field goal on their first overtime drive, Eveld led the offense 25 yards for a stunning win, earning the program’s first and only victory over the Canes and cementing his place in USF lore.

Lowlight: The team’s fortunes would eventually improve, but it’s impossible to overstate just how horrendous the offense was early in the season. The lowest point was probably the Bulls’ 20-6 loss to West Virginia, in which Daniels threw for a paltry 119 yards and three interceptions on all of four yards per attempt. USF got beyond the Mountaineers’ 30-yard-line only once all game; had the Bulls played for four more quarters, they likely still would not have found the end zone.

Offensive MVP: The Bulls’ receiving corps, decimated by preseason injuries, was famously dubbed “the island of misfit toys” by Holtz. It was a fair assessment: the leaders in the unit included converted quarterback Evan Landi, converted running back Lindsey Lamar, and walk-ons Joel Miller and Stephen Bravo-Brown. Thankfully, the one returning starter had a tremendous season. Bogan led the Bulls with 685 yards and six touchdowns, which on this team may as well have been a thousand.

Defensive MVP: This was a quietly loaded defense - featuring future NFL talents like Kayvon Webster, Terrell McClain, and Jacquian Williams - but no one captured this team’s next-man-up ethos quite like defensive back Mistral Raymond. The coaching staff had once nicknamed Raymond “Sweetbay” after the former Florida supermarket chain, under the logic that if he was on the field, the game was long over and coaches had already left to get groceries. In 2010, though, the team voted Raymond a captain, and the lanky safety spearheaded one of the best units in school history.

#4: 2017 (10-2, 6-2 in conference)

Summary: 2017 is the ultimate conundrum in an exercise like this; I could genuinely entertain arguments that it should be slotted first overall or in the bottom five. This group is almost certainly the most talented USF team of the post-Big East era, boasting future NFL talents on both sides of the ball like D’Ernest Johnson, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Mitchell Wilcox, Deadrin Senat, Deatrick Nichols, and Bruce Hector - and that’s not to mention the ringmaster, defending conference player of the year Quinton Flowers at quarterback. Between the embarrassment of riches in returning talent, a tissue-paper-soft schedule, and the team’s newfound defensive stinginess under new coach Charlie Strong, fans rightfully developed a very binary “championship or bust” mindset entering the year. Unfortunately, there were two catches: first, Strong, recently fired from Texas, showed startling inflexibility on the offensive side of the ball by bringing along offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert, whose vertically-inclined veer-and-shoot was a poor fit for the shifty, athletic Bulls. Second, USF’s clearest-ever path to a title happened to overlap with the unexpected rise of a juggernaut in Orlando. Thus, the season became one long march to Black Friday, when the 9-1 Bulls, with a hiccupy, inconsistent offense, took on the 11-0 Knights for a spot in the conference title game. Despite a Herculean effort from Flowers, the Bulls lost in a thriller, and their most talented roster in years ended up watching the conference championship from home yet again. Strong had, as many liked to say, “failed the mission”. Nonetheless: a 10-win season is necessarily going to feature many highlights, and a year-end ranking and monumental senior year performances from several program icons keep 2017 in my personal top four. But it should have been even higher.

Highlight: A year earlier, the Bulls had their conference title hopes dashed by plucky underdog Temple, whose power running game absolutely overwhelmed the defensively inept Bulls. This led to some postgame chatter from the Owls, who were apparently unimpressed with the Bulls’ toughness. In their conference opener in 2017, the Bulls got their revenge in dominant fashion. Behind a rejuvenated defense, USF held the Owls to 85 total yards, negative four rushing yards, and zero offensive points. The 43-7 bludgeoning felt like a year’s worth of frustration unleashed, and showed that the marriage between Charlie Strong’s defensive chops and the offensive juggernaut he inherited was capable of moments of perfection.

Lowlight: Some might take offense to my labeling the most thrilling USF game of all time - a nationally televised, back-and-forth duel between mid-major titans with a title on the line - as a lowlight. And to those people I say: do you remember how you felt directly after the 2017 War on I-4? This was a gut punch unlike any other in USF history. Despite Sterlin Gilbert’s best efforts to hamstring the USF offense, Quinton Flowers essentially shook him off and repeatedly called his own pitches to the tune of a monstrous 605-yard, five-touchdown performance. You could not have asked for a more noble performance from Flowers in his final regular season game, and watching him go shot-for-shot with a titanic Knights offense was awe-inspiring. It it also made the game’s ending even more devastating: down eight, Flowers threw for an 83-yard touchdown with 1:41 to go, then audibled into a throwback to D’Ernest Johnson on the two-point conversion to tie the game. When UCF immediately responded by returning the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, Flowers drove the Bulls back into Knights territory, where they were finally undone by a fumble with 40 seconds to go. Just like that, the dream was dead - worse yet, killed by the Bulls’ biggest rival. To be alive and to be a sports fan is to feel pain, but that doesn’t mean we have to enjoy it.

Offensive MVP: Quinton Flowers was as magisterial as ever in 2017, even as Gilbert attempted to make a pocket passer out of him. He set career highs in passing yards (2,911) and touchdowns (25), and his War on I-4 performance is entirely unparalleled in school history. He finished his Bulls career with one last stunner: a 417-yard, five touchdown performance against Texas Tech in which he threw the game-winning touchdown with 16 seconds to go. This program may never see his equal.

Defensive MVP: Defensive tackle Deadrin Senat was an often unstoppable force in the center of the Bulls’ defensive line, transforming himself in his senior season from a space-eater into a shockingly athletic pass rusher. His final five games - in which he racked up 40 tackles, nine TFLs, and six sacks - likely earned him millions and launched him all the way up draft boards into the third round.

Stay tuned for the final part next week, featuring the top three!