Last September, I visited the USF campus in Tampa, Fla. to begin working on a story about the football program and its swift ascent from nothing. Growing up near Tampa, I knew about the program, but I never really thought that it would ever be a Top 25 team until I visited the campus and toured the athletic facilities.

The $15 million athletic facility, erected in 2004, was one of the best I had ever seen on a college campus. From the locker room to the weight room to the two underwater treadmills for physical therapy, everything was top notch. Then I was walking through the hallways of the study area and a student walked past us. It was mid-week and he was wearing cargo shorts and a polo shirt. He had a backpack over his shoulders and tennis shoes on his feet. He looked like the typical college student, but he carried a football under his right arm.

This scene, a player carrying a football around campus, is inextricably linked to the 1993 motion picture, “The Program,” which stars James Cann and a young Halle Barry, about a fictional college football team. (It’s listed as a drama/action but is unbelievably high on the unintentional comedy scale.) In the film, Darnell Jefferson, the team’s freshmen running back played by Omar Epps, continually fumbles the ball in his first attempts at the position. Consequently, the coach, James Cann, forces Jefferson to carry a football with him at all times. He eats with it. He sleeps with it. He studies with it. And it never leaves his sight. It is a definitive sign that a college takes its football seriously.

Then on my visit to USF, a school that had just joined a major conference (Big East) for the first time, there was a player dressed like a normal student with a football under his arm. Beyond the high-class facilities and high profile wins, this said that USF was taking its football program seriously.

USF garnered its first ever Top 25 ranking this week, and it’s not a stretch to place them in the “Big Four” of college football teams in Florida. USF’s beat writer for the St. Pete Times listed the top four in Florida this way. Below is my top 5 based on performance this year.

“The Big Five” in Florida

1.    UF
2.    USF
3.    UCF
4.    FSU
5.    Miami

USF Schedule & Results

Sept. 1, 2007        Elon    (W) 28-13
Sept. 8, 2007        at Auburn    (W) 26-23
Sept. 22, 2007      North Carolina
Sept. 28, 2007      West Virginia
Oct. 6, 2007           at Florida Atlantic
Oct. 13, 2007        UCF
Oct. 18, 2007        at Rutgers
Oct. 27, 2007        at Connecticut
Nov. 3, 2007         Cincinnati
Nov. 10, 2007       at Syracuse
Nov. 17, 2007       Louisville
Nov. 24, 2007       at Pittsburgh