South Florida

Bulls · American Athletic

Head coach Alex Golesh Year 3 with South Florida

Year-3 HCs (2015-2024) averaged -0.10 W vs SP+ expected · n=21

Season Projection · 2026 W0

10,000 sims

8.9

Expected wins

9-3

Proj record

6 to 11

Win range (90%)

#29 (15–52)

Final rank (90%)

Make playoff

32%

Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

Baseline projection.

at East Carolina

Away · Nov 7
at UTSA

Away · Oct 8
vs Memphis

Home · Nov 13
vs Tulane

Home · Nov 27
at Florida Atlantic

Away · Nov 21

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2025

46 PCI

Quarterback 33% (2/6 players)
Offensive line 63% (12/19 players)
Skill (RB/WR/TE) 50% (20/40 players)
Front 7 (DL/LB) 39% (13/33 players)
Secondary 62% (13/21 players)
Special teams 30% (3/10 players)

PCI weights returning production by position group (QB/OL heaviest). 70%+ is healthy continuity; 45-70% is a normal rebuild; below 45% is a meaningful turnover.

If QB1 is out (Byrum Brown)

GIE projects a -5.7 rating drop and a -23.0pp shift in playoff probability if South Florida loses its QB1 for an extended stretch. (n=1 historical samples; pooled across recent seasons.)

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank

3rd-down conversion 45.2% 94th — elite
Red-zone TD rate 19.4% 86th — strong
4th-down aggression 38.9% 65th — average
Late & close 6.3 yds/play 78th — strong

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

Schedule

Full 2026 slate. Tap a row for the matchup breakdown.

Latest Stories

Stories about South Florida will appear here as they're published. Check back during the season for analysis, hot takes, and game write-ups.

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.