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Pac-12 expansion candidates: South Florida Bulls

Conference must add at least one football-playing school before 2026
Bob Lundeberg|
South Florida Bulls.
South Florida Bulls. | Kim Klement-Imagn Images

The rebuilt Pac-12 has eight members signed up for the 2026-27 athletics season: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga, Oregon State, San Diego State, Washington State and Utah State. 

The conference must attract at least one more football-playing member before 2026 to reach the NCAA’s eight-team minimum to qualify as an FBS conference. Gonzaga does not have a football program. 

The Pac-12, which poached five teams from the Mountain West and Gonzaga from the West Coast Conference, is expected to add between one and six additional members in the coming weeks and months. 

As conference realignment wages on, Boise State Broncos on SI is taking a look at schools that have been linked to the Pac-12 in various reports. 

We have already covered the Memphis Tigers, North Texas Mean Green, Rice Owls, Sacramento State Hornets and Saint Mary’s Gaels. Now, we will head back to the American Athletic Conference to dig into the South Florida Bulls. 

University of South Florida

Location: Tampa, Florida 

Current conference: American Athletic Conference 

Enrollment: 48,732

Endowment: $798.2 million

Athletics budget: $62,288,597

Football stadium: Raymond James Stadium (69,218 capacity)

Basketball arena: Yuengling Center (10,411 capacity)

The case for South Florida

If geography no longer matters in college sports, then South Florida should certainly be on the Pac-12’s radar.

With an enrollment approaching 50,000, South Florida is the fourth-largest university in Florida. UCF successfully made the transition from the Group of 5 to the Big 12 as a massive, urban state school, and South Florida has a similar profile. 

The Tampa Bay region is stocked with 3.2 million people, the 17th-largest metro area in the country (one spot above San Diego). Florida is a recruiting hotbed, and the Tampa Bay metro is a quick flight away from talent-rich Miami. 

While South Florida has largely struggled on the football field in recent years, head coach Alex Golesh appears to have the Bulls headed in the right direction. South Florida did experience success under Jim Leavitt — rising as high as No. 2 in the BCS Rankings during the 2007 season —  before the program tailed off. 

Back in November, South Florida broke ground on a new on-campus football stadium that will seat around 35,000. The stadium is expected to be ready for the 2027 season. The Bulls currently share Raymond James Stadium with the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

The case against South Florida

If Memphis seems like a geographic stretch for the Pac-12, what does that make South Florida?

Tampa is a 12-hour drive from Memphis, which is more than 1,000 miles southeast of Fort Collins — the easternmost city in the new Pac-12. According to Google Maps, a drive from Memphis to Fort Collins would take just under 16 hours; Memphis to Tampa isn’t much shorter.

The Bulls are also an under-achiever in football with an 80-103 overall record since Leavitt’s dismissal following the 2009 season. 

South Florida hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball since 2012, but the Bulls did win last year’s AAC regular-season title under first-year head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim. Tragically, Abdur-Rahim died in October with assistant Ben Fletcher taking over as interim head coach for the 2024-25 season. 

Verdict

While South Florida’s positives are undeniable, the school is simply too far outside the Pac-12’s current footprint to be the eighth or ninth football-playing member. 

The Bulls only make sense if the Pac-12 is looking to become a massive 12- to 14-team league and create a Southern pod of Memphis, South Florida, Tulane and a representative or two from Texas. 

As a stand-alone addition — or even packaged with one other Southern school — South Florida doesn’t seem like the best option at the moment. 

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Bob Lundeberg
BOB LUNDEBERG

Bob Lundeberg is a reporter for Boise State Broncos On SI. An Oregon State graduate, Bob has lived in Idaho since 2019 and is an avid hiker and golfer.

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