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No. 20 South Florida enjoys the recognition that comes with being ranked in the Top 25. Coach Skip Holtz and his players just aren't spending much time talking about it.
At least not yet.
The Bulls (2-0) climbed into The Associated Press poll for the first time in nearly two years following a season-opening win at Notre Dame. When they jumped two spots after last week's 37-7 rout of Ball State, Holtz decided to address what it means during a team meeting.
''I said everybody's getting giddy over the polls. This is not where we want to be. We didn't set a goal to say we want to be No. 20 in the country,'' Holtz said. '' I said all we've got to do is continue to take care of business and that'll all take care of itself. We're not going to talk about it every week, ride the emotional rollercoaster up and down. Let's keep our nose to the grindstone. And when the dust clears at the end of the year, let's see where we are.''
Beating Notre Dame grabbed the nation's attention. Holtz's hope is that facing Florida A&M (1-1) Saturday night and Texas-El Paso next week will help the Bulls get ready for their Big East opener at Pittsburgh on Sept. 29.
Though USF isn't a stranger to the national spotlight, rising as high as No. 2 in the BCS standings before faltering in 2007, it has never won the Big East.
''Don't get me wrong, it's great to be there,'' Holtz said, noting the exposure helps recruiting as well as acknowledges strides the Bulls are making toward a goal of evolving into a program with realistic expectations of competing for conference and national championships
''I'm not undervaluing having the opportunity to be ranked. But for the football team and what it means to us on a daily basis, that's not something we want to dwell on,'' Holtz added. ''We're not going to ride that rollercoaster ... because then you start trying to play to protect something. You start playing to make sure we don't lose our ranking rather than going out and playing the game the way it's supposed to be played.''
The second-year coach feels the Bulls are coming off arguably the most complete performance they've had under him. He's looking for continued improvement against FAMU, particularly from backups who didn't play as well as he felt they were capable against Ball State.
Depth will be critical when the team gets into its conference schedule, so it's vital that reserves get as much playing time as possible against FAMU and UTEP.
''We are learning with this football team what their strengths and weaknesses are. You can practice all you want. But when you go out there on Saturday and you play in front of people, it's a different team, Holtz said.
And while he's not making any bold predictions about the remainder of the season, the coach is he encouraged by the team's attitude and work ethic.
''When you get around good football teams, they don't worry about who you're playing this week. It's not like: `OK, this week we've really got to be focused because the opponent is X.' This football team right now is, `We've got to do what we do. We've got to get better. We're not there yet.' They understand that we have lofty expectations for where we want to go,'' Holtz said.
''I don't know if we'll get there. We'll find out as we go along. But we talk every week about having to win the intangibles. which for is our focus, our passion, our intensity, our togetherness - all those things we control with our emotions,'' the coach added. ''Through two games, this team has done a great job making sure they're ready to peak Saturday at kickoff.''
