Bulls know to expect Gators' best

The latest college football rankings came out Tuesday and confirmed what everyone basically thought.

We figured the Florida Gators would tumble and they did, dropping four spots following their 34-12 victory over Miami (Ohio). Voters were more swayed by UF's eight fumbles than the 22-point victory margin.

If you listened closely, you heard the sound of cautious optimism coming from the University of South Florida faithful, even though their team is a 161/2-point underdog Saturday when the Bulls head to the Swamp for the first time.

Deep inside the athletic center at USF, though, the opinion on the Gators was somewhat different from the pollsters and fans. Defensive coordinator Mark Snyder answered with a firm "absolutely" when asked if he believes the Gators are a top-five team. And now it's a team with a lot to prove.

That's what makes this game intriguing. We know Florida's potential, but a top-five team doesn't kick the ball around that way. Questions and doubts always make for good storylines, and there are several for both teams.

"Everybody right now is saying Florida is broke after last week's performance," USF coach Skip Holtz said. "They won by 22 points. Their quarterback was 17 of 25. Their two tailbacks averaged 12 yards a carry and 9 yards a carry.

"Defensively, they didn't give up a touchdown. They gave up 0.2 yards per rush. (Miami) had 22 rushes for 4 yards, not four rushes for 22. They did not give up a touchdown. And that's a bad day."

In the elevator from the press box to the field near the end of Saturday's game, I overheard a couple of obviously long-time Gators fans trying to assess just how badly their team had played against Miami.

One of them said it reminded him of the Doug Dickey era. His buddy said the game looked more like the 7-7 tie against Georgia Tech in Charley Pell's first season - the only game the Gators didn't lose that year. I don't believe either of those assessments were meant to be complimentary.

"How come they couldn't have waited a week (to play like that)?" Snyder chuckled. "But I think our guys get it. They're pretty smart football players and they know they won't see anything like that when we go up there. Whatever problems Florida had last week, they'll get 'em fixed this week in practice."

The Bulls are just as big an enigma. What do we really know about them? They routed Stony Brook, sure, but that was ... well ... Stony Brook. The USF of the Jim Leavitt era went to places like Auburn, Tallahassee and West Virginia and beat favored teams. No one knows what to expect with this new coaching staff, though.

We do know one thing. A win Saturday would become an instant classic for the Bulls. Pull this off and any conversation about great wins in USF history would have to begin with the day they went into the Swamp and beat the Gators.

"It's certainly an opportunity our football program deserves and our fans deserve," USF athletic director Doug Woolard said.

It's an opportunity likely to be limited. The Bulls play at the Swamp again in 2015, with no payback game in Tampa. They'll never get one here, either, at least not as long as the Gators keep filling 90,000 seats at home. Can't blame UF for that.

Since the Bulls are in a BCS league, though, one-way deals like this are a great scheduling disadvantage.

"I'd be interested in trying to start a series with them that brings them here," Woolard said. "But if they don't want to, we'd probably look for some other BCS opponent."

Holtz has more immediate concerns.

"It's impossible to duplicate the speed and athleticism they have on the field," he said. "It's going to be very difficult to duplicate that atmosphere and crowd noise."

Those aren't the only things. The Gators struggled against a team from the Mid-American Conference that finished 1-11 last year and paid for it in the polls. They fumbled, bumbled and looked like anything but a typical Florida team.

As USF knows too well, though, it's also impossible to imagine something like that can happen again.