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Fennelly: USF's love letter to the Big 12

 
Will the USF fan base — insert your opinion here — be enough to convince the Big 12?
Will the USF fan base — insert your opinion here — be enough to convince the Big 12?
Published Aug. 5, 2016

TAMPA — He's got mail.

Ah, the Dear Bob letter.

USF has written the Big 12. We're assuming the letter obtained by the Tampa Bay Times — the one from USF president Judy Genshaft, athletic director Mark Harlan and board of trustees chairman Brian Lamb to Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby — has been delivered.

Hope USF didn't send it FedEx. The letter will never get out of Memphis.

East Carolina reportedly sent a singing telegram … and balloons!

Yes, the letter was a formality, symbolic as much as anything. We knew USF was going all in. What we don't know is if it will matter. Or what the Big 12 wants in expansion teams or how many it wants.

Bet the Big 12 doesn't know, either. That conference is nuts. USF would be proud to join it.

The Bulls are a long shot.

But it's not a wild goose chase if the goose writes back.

The USF letter, using broad strokes, paints a picture of an ideal playing partner for the Big 12. If USF gets in the conference, the letter's two pages will be placed behind glass in a university museum, not far from the proposed site for Harlan Field at Genshaft Stadium.

The letter provides a steady message. It's as if USF is courting a Fortune 500 company to move here, not a college athletics conference. Maybe that's how the Big 12 wants it.

It still comes down to this:

Pick us! Not them! Us!

Back to the letter. It makes a good case. At least on paper.

It promotes USF academics. Like USF's top 25 public university research ranking and student-athlete graduation rates and combined GPA. And that USF is ranked ninth nationally among public universities for U.S. patents granted. Bet USF still wishes one of its football teams had invented a conference title somewhere in there.

More from the letter. Location, location, location: The nation's 11th largest media market, the growing I-4 corridor, all those USF alumni, all those Big 12 alumni. Destination, destination, destination: Super Bowls, NCAA Final Fours, and the College Football Playoff national championship game coming soon to a stadium near you.

I see where USF is going with this.

We're smart, we like football, and just try to wiggle your toes in the sand in Cincinnati.

Tampa Bay is a college football town. True, most everyone is wearing Gators and Seminoles stuff. But USF has captured imaginations. Sustainability is the issue.

I think people who immediately discount USF lack vision. Or they've seen too much cruddy football. One of those two things.

That's why USF's pitch is tricky. It's a glimpse into its football past — the No. 2 national ranking, the big upsets, the big Tampa crowds. The gist: If we did it once, we can do it again.

It's a glimpse toward the potential future at one of the 10 largest universities in the country. That's the sell. It involves a Big 12 leap of faith. The old sleeping giant deal.

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Yes, sleeping giant has slept a lot. And USF needs the Big 12 to expand by four teams, not two. And USF needs UCF, it needs the Big 12 to buy into the Florida footprint. One small step for man, one giant leap for Iowa State.

USF needs to convince Big 12 presidents that the state of Florida is the smart play, which it is. It's outside the box, but the box is the third most populous state in the nation.

And, for fun, USF needs to go and prove what the letter stated, namely that there are USF alumni "living in 146 countries around the globe ."

That Bulls selfie from Maldives could be the deal-maker.

Harlan is an efficient operator, no wasted movement. That might be what's needed at this point: the art of the deal, hold the Trump. Genshaft better be on her game, too. Long shot or not, this is USF's best shot, now and maybe forever. It's either there or it's not.

Back to the letter.

Scented or unscented?

We'll never know.