Holtz needs to take USF to next level

TAMPA - There were balloons and a band and cheerleaders and boosters and even some students. Rocky the Bull did the sound check. So went the first public appearance for new South Florida football coach Skip Holtz.

"Go Bulls," Holtz shouted.

"Beat Florida!" someone yelled.

"I'm with that," Holtz yelled back. "That's why I'm here."

No coach loses his first news conference at a new school, especially when it's a pep rally. Holtz's was held Friday at an outdoor amphitheater near the USF student center.

In fact, hardly anyone loses that first news conference, going all the way back to Adam, who stood with Eve and screamed, "Go Eden! Beat Serpent!"

With the image of the last USF head coach meeting Joel Miller in a church parking lot still in our minds ... Bless me, Leavitt, for I have sinned ... Skip Holtz took the stage.

He must take more than that. He must take South Florida to a new level.

First things first.

"I'm extremely sensitive to the healing that needs to go on with these football players, what they've been through," Holtz said. "There's a lot of individual healing and there's a lot of team healing, and there's a trust factor that's been broken ...."

Not to say healing is overrated, but USF players will get over it pretty quickly.

"We hate the circumstances, but it's time to move on and have a new era at South Florida," Bulls quarterback B.J. Daniels said.

And you'd be surprised how much healing there'll be if they ever win the Big East.

USF football has stalled. USF has underachieved. That sounds strange, since the Bulls beat Florida State this season, but it's the truth. Leavitt, for all he did, and he did a lot, had taken this program as far as he could before he went too far.

USF is 17-18 in Big East play since joining the conference in 2005. The Bulls began the last three seasons 5-0. No other FBS school can lay claim to that ... or the three collapses that followed those 5-0 starts.

USF is 0-4 against both Rutgers and Cincinnati over the past four seasons. That's unacceptable. Since 2005, only two Big East schools have failed to finish either first or second in the Big East. One is woeful Syracuse. The other is USF.

There has to be a better way.

Holtz needs to find it.

He has the talent, he has the players, he has the recruiting base, he has the right conference, just eight teams vying for an automatic BCS bid.

"I feel like USF can no longer use the excuse of being a new program," ESPN analyst Jesse Palmer said. "I think that's tired and about to vanish. The Big East is a conference they should be able to win. The win-loss record looks really good in years past. But when you look at that team's record within the Big East, it's very average."

About to vanish?

The "new program" thing died years ago.

USF has made five straight bowls.

But there's more out there.

"I certainly think, for the seniors, we're going to try to win the Big East title our first year here," Holtz said.

He built something at Connecticut and most recently at East Carolina, which he turned into a Conference USA champion. Like USF under Leavitt, East Carolina under Holtz pulled off upsets, over Virginia Tech, West Virginia and Boise State. Like USF, ECU has staked out territory in its home state, beating North Carolina and N.C. State.

Beat Florida?

Skip Holtz says that's why he's here.

He gets his crack in September in Gainesville.

It's a tall order.

But becoming a true Big East power should be a given.

Holtz talked about his new team Friday, his new players, and about his style, which he says has never wavered.

"It's a trust factor," Holtz said. "There are lines I won't cross. ... Never criticize the performer. Criticize the performance. I'll never put my hands on a player. I'll never forget in the process that he has a mom and dad and he's their child."

It's a sign of the times that such a thing needed to be said, but it did.

The Bulls need to put their hands on a Big East trophy.

Those are the sailing orders, Skip.