TAMPA, Fla. – The University of South Florida football program is on the rise, with a new head coach in Brian Hartline running the show and a new on-campus stadium being built in Tampa.<\/p>\n
In the shadows of the new stadium is the Frank Morsani Football Practice Complex, where the newfound excitement in the Bulls\u2019 fanbase is motivating the team in practice.<\/p>\n
USF opened fall camp on Wednesday morning as anticipation builds for what Hartline and the rest of the new coaching staff will bring to the table. Now that the Bulls are back on the practice field, we\u2019re starting to get a glimpse at what it might look like.<\/p>\n
They still don\u2019t have pads on, but it was clear that those guys were working hard on a hot morning in the Florida summer. The players understand where Hartline comes from as a national championship-winning assistant at Ohio State, so they understand they\u2019re going to get pushed and they appear ready for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely tough, man,\u201d senior defensive tackle Major Dillard said when asked how tough Hartline\u2019s practices are. \u201cHe preaches excellence like that\u2019s what he\u2019s shooting for. That\u2019s what he aims for. You know he comes from that cloth. So he\u2019s trying to get us on the same cloth, you know, make his own cloth and turn us into what he\u2019s used to. So, you know, he\u2019s doing a great job. I love Coach Hart and, you know, he\u2019s a great coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I think we\u2019ve been more physical through practice than we\u2019ve ever been, you know, as of late. So taking a lot of pride on that. I think that\u2019s an M.O. for the conference. The toughest teams in this conference are going to compete for championships. And if you don\u2019t have that toughness, you\u2019re not going to compete for championships,\u201d Hartline said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s excited for day one, even me and the coaches. It\u2019s just something you\u2019ve been looking forward to all offseason. You finally have a game in sight. You\u2019re looking to earn your starting position and it\u2019s just excitement all across the board,\u201d senior offensive lineman Thomas Shrader said.<\/p>\n
The biggest question entering fall camp for the Bulls is at the quarterback position. USF is calling it an \u201cactive competition\u201d between LSU transfer Michael Van Buren and Mississippi State transfer Luke Kromenhoek.<\/p>\n
Hartline is still not ready to name a starter and said it\u2019s a decision that won\u2019t be rushed<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it\u2019ll be dictated on the guys, so when we feel like we\u2019re very confident in the decision and there\u2019s been, you know, maybe an opportunity where any hesitation has been removed. To try to outline it with criteria, I mean, that\u2019s hard to kind of do. I mean, you\u2019ll know when you know. And frankly, it\u2019s up to them to separate themselves, have one guy separate themselves. But haven\u2019t given myself a final call date when I want to necessarily do that work through camp and we\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d Hartline said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the only way to get better, but it\u2019s the only way to be your best. And you got honestly more than two, like really, really, really good guys who could go out there, who could command the offense, do everything that we need them to, and they\u2019re battling out every day. That\u2019s what you want to see. That end of the day, you need iron to sharpen iron, and it\u2019s like that with every position group. But when you do that at the head of the snake at that position, come on man. And I\u2019m going to say is whoever is out there I trust, I know they\u2019re going to lead us to do whatever,\u201d senior offensive lineman Caleb Cook said.<\/p>\n
As the new stadium gets built on the horizon of the practice field, it\u2019s a symbol of the growth of this program. For now, this team is focused on this season, with home games being played at Raymond James Stadium. The season opener is Saturday, September 5 at 7 p.m. against FIU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. – The University of South Florida football program is on the rise, with a new head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[143,115,275,110,135,137,136,19211,835],"class_list":["post-365269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-college-football","tag-news","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-usf-bulls","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}