One-on-one with USF AD Michael Kelly: How the Bulls are setting themselves up for the future of college football

News broke last week that the Pac-12 is adding several new members to its conference and is looking at a couple other programs from the American Athletic Conference (AAC). The realignment dominos are once again falling, and the University of South Florida Bulls are in a prime spot to take its athletics to the next level.

While the Pac-12 may not make much sense for the Bulls given geography (although that didn’t stop Stanford and Cal from joining the Atlantic Coast Conference), look for USF to break into whatever’s next in the world of college athletics. The program is primed for it.

“It’s all about being in the top tier,” USF athletics director Michael Kelly told On3’s Mike Singer in an exclusive phone interview Tuesday. “No one knows in five years if there’s even a P4 or if there’s one group of 50 or 80. I don’t get too caught up with the specifics of a conference, but I know we’re on the radar of the current P4, and we’re focused on making the American the strongest it can be as well. It’s important to be the man where you stand. Rest assured, we are in constant conversations and are always evaluating opportunities to determine what’s best for USF.”

From 2019-22, USF football struggled to say the least, but the program has been rejuvenated under Alex Golesh, who Kelly hired in December 2022. In 2023, Golesh led the Bulls to their first winning season since 2018, and USF is off to a strong start in its 2024 season.

The Bulls defeated Bethune Cookman 48-3 to start the campaign, had Alabama on the ropes in a one-score contest before the Crimson Tide pulled away late and knocked off Southern Mississippi on the road by 25 points last weekend. And this weekend, the No. 8 Miami Hurricanes come to Tampa for a showdown on ESPN.

There’s plenty of buzz about USF football, and there’s a clear investment from the university into its athletics.

“USF will continuously be on the radar because of everything we’re doing,” Kelly added. “In an era of permissiveness where schools are cutting back and doing less, USF is exceeding standards in recent times. We’re prepared to be aggressive as we can be in terms of projected revenue sharing; we’re all in on that.

“We’re focused on realignment — it’s just realigning ourselves to make sure we’re at the top tier of college sports. No matter where we go, it’s all a matter of being at the top of Division I — whatever that projects itself to be in the near future.

“We are Power Four in everything that we do now already. People may not realize that. When I started [in 2018], we had a $50 million budget. I sit here before you with a $100 million budget. That’s tremendous growth in six years, including a pandemic. That’s only the operating budget and doesn’t consider all we’ve done for facilities.”

“We renovated our current football building. We built an IPF (indoor practice facility), and we’re building a new operations building and stadium. We’re adding two new sports as well, and we’re in the 11th-largest market in the country. Who wouldn’t want USF as a part of their future as it relates to college sports?”

Read the Q&A of the rest of the interview between Singer and Kelly below.

How important of a factor is the on-campus stadium to this whole discussion of raising the bar for USF football?

Kelly: “It’s critical to everything. I was here 20 years ago and would meet with Coach [Jim] Leavitt in an office trailer. Fast forward to today and we have the Lee Roy Selmon Center. We got a new $3 million locker room three years ago, a $22 million IPF and will add $340 million operations building and stadium.

“I think it’s getting lost because we’re just talking about the stadium, but we’re building an operations building and a stadium simultaneously, and it’ll be adjacent to the indoor facility. Very few places at any level have that type of efficiency and ability to plan for the modern student athlete — what they need.

“That’s what excites me. Schools will get new things, but they’ll be a mile or two apart. It’s going to be so efficient not only for our football program, but it’s going to extend to our whole athletic department. From where I’m talking to you right now in the Selmon Center, I can touch every one of my facilities and talk to my coaches within a 300-yard radius.

t-minus 30 days until groundbreaking 👀🤘 pic.twitter.com/X81Sec4NLc

— University of South Florida (@USouthFlorida) September 18, 2024

“It’s critical for the efficiency and needs of our future student-athletes. It will be second to none as it relates to football facilities. And then you take that one step further and how we share that revenue with student-athletes. Raymond James is a great stadium, but fast forward to a new leveraged ability to raise a lot more money in terms of fundraising, to naming rights to food and beverage, which we don’t have access to right now. And suddenly, USF — which has been performing well in certain aspects with limited revenue opportunities — now has a whole brand new place to bring to the table. It’s vital for revenue generation, image, efficiency and a whole wave of momentum.”

And what’s the timeframe you’re looking at for completion of the new operations building and stadium?

Kelly: “At this point, everything will be done in 2027. We break ground October 18. The operations center will be a little bit ahead of the stadium, but exactly when it’ll be occupiable, we’re not 100 percent sure yet. But that part is being built first. The past couple months, we’ve made sure the design is exactly how Coach [Golesh] wants it to be.

“Coach, Andrew Warsaw [USF football chief of staff] and I went around the country in the summer to look at what we considered the best facilities to take the best from those and put it into what we have here.

“Everything is focused on being ready for the summer of 2027 ahead of our first game in the fall of ’27.”

Alex Golesh is a tremendous coach. How do you keep him for the long haul?

Kelly: “It’s vital. I recruited him here with the vision we set forth, and he bought into that vision. He knew what we had to overcome and what we’d provide him to be successful. We certainly kept our end of the bargain, and he appreciates and respects that. We’ve already redone his contract twice since he’s been here, and to his credit, it’s mostly been about what goes into the program — and mainly his staff. There’s over $1.5 million more invested in his staff than what he first inherited here.

“When you look at nutrition, we went from a little over a million to over $3 million of investment in that program. We’ve totally redone the weight room, locker room, built an indoor facility and are building an operations center and stadium that he had direct ability to inform on.

“As he and I look at it, no matter where we are and no matter where we go, we are extremely well positioned in the current format of the CFP — to have a reasonable path to get there. It’s not going to be easy; we still have to win the American and have yet to do that. But we know that between the scheduling we have non-conference, to the opportunity we have with our relationship we have with ESPN, we’re building for the future.

“We’re keeping up our end of the bargain, and Coach and I talk about a joint vision on everything we need. He’s been great with telling us what he thinks he needs to be successful, and we’ve been delivering that and will continue to be very aggressive. It’s already in his contract that if we do go up to what’s a so-called Power Four, he knows how his salary will be market adjusted for that.

“We’ve built this whole thing planned for growth and continued success. The success we’re having in the start of this proof of concept is not by surprise. It’s by design.”

We’ve talked about matters that are further in the future, but let’s discuss this Miami game on Saturday night. There’s a record number of student claims on tickets, and you guys are opening the upper deck of Raymond James Stadium. What a big opportunity this is to play a top team on a national stage in primetime on ESPN.

Kelly: “It’ll be a record crowd from a student standpoint. From my history being here during the infancy of this program to my time as COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the College Football Playoff, I know how [the CFP] was designed to be and how the selection committee is supposed to look at it from a strength of schedule standpoint. To be able to put some solid non-conference games in there like Alabama and Miami to complement with what we hope is a strong performance in conference, it positions us well.

“We also know our players, coaches and fans want us to play games like this. To have the chance to Miami come here is a big deal, and Miami doesn’t want to play cupcakes every week either. They want to have a formidable schedule for the same reasons we do.

“We’re excited about the restoration of this matchup, and we’re going there next year.

“The record number of students that have claimed tickets for this game shows that they, too, are feeling the momentum of what’s happening with football at the University of South Florida. It’ll be buzzing at Raymond James. I expect a crowd of about 55,000 plus.”

If you beat Miami or play them really tight, and people look at the start to USF’s season, then you compete for an AAC championship — how important is the opportunity ahead this season regarding the impact of getting into whatever is next in college football? Is this a big factor? Could winning 10 games or so this year make USF even more attractive?

Kelly: “That’s another proof of concept that we belong. Again, there’s money that we’re spending on our student athletes and investments that we’re making that is superior to some of the P4. We operate as a P4 program already, so now we have to do that over the long haul.

“If we have the ability to challenge for and/or win the American this year, that proves that we belong when you look at how we played at Alabama and how we hope to play against Miami.

“This is the era of permissiveness and providing more for your student-athletes. It’s not about when someone joined a conference or a club — 60 years ago before we were even born. Don’t structure the future of college football based on only the past — who was in what club at what time. Do it on who is truly making the investment and who truly has the aptitude for the future. If everything about this discussion is all about modernizing and looking towards the future, then there’s no better example to look towards than the University of South Florida.”

How does USF set itself apart in the NIL space? I hear really good things about how well your program does in that space. How does the program utilize it to its advantage?

Kelly: “There’s few in G5 and even P4 that do NIL as we do. There might be some that have more resources, but we have adapted to modern times and are one of the few that have focused on building an NIL unit of several full-time people who are dedicated to not only what’s permissible now, but what’s going to be available if the settlement goes through. We want to serve all of our programs in a modern, elite way to make sure we’re at the very top of NIL.

“We’re proud of our modernized approach to college sports. Our NIL unit, led by Andrew Warsaw, is a perfect fit for us. We’re going to be among the top of the revenue sharing era.”