Hartline embraces USF leaving NFL venue for on-campus stadium
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The 2026 season represents a crossroads of eras for South Florida Bulls football.
It’s a beginning for head coach Brian Hartline, who replaces Alex Golesh as the frontman of the Bulls. Hartline spent the past nine seasons climbing the coaching ladder at Ohio State from an offensive quality control assistant to the offensive coordinator. South Florida represents his first stop outside of the Columbus city limits.
Simultaneously, it’s an ending for USF’s 29-year stint Raymond James Stadium. Since their second season as a football program in 1998, the Bulls have shared the venue with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Only seven guaranteed games remain before the Bulls permanently remove their signage and logos from Raymond James Stadium.
In 2027, South Florida will open the program’s first on-campus stadium, currently known as USF Bulls Stadium and located at Sycamore Fields near the Porter Family Indoor Performance Facility. Construction is already underway, and the anticipation is already flowing throughout the team facilities.
“Brand new football operations facility, the guys are kicking butt on it,” Hartline said. “It’s 5 a.m., headlamps are on, and they are working. From the players’ standpoint, they’ve said it’s really exciting. They’re dreaming about it. They’d probably love to play in the stadium. They’d love to be in a new locker room, a new weight room, a new recovery room, and a new barber shop. All of that matters. It’s fun, it’s part of it, and they deserve it.”
In the NIL and revenue-sharing era, Hartline interprets the stadium as tangible evidence of the lengths the Bulls are willing to go to invest in their football program.
“To me, it resembles where we are and where we want to go,” Hartline said. “Yes, it’s great to have a big shiny house, but it’s not about the house. It’s how you operate in that house. Is it a house or is it a home? What’s the product that’s gonna be in that building? What kind of people are gonna be in that building? What kind of football is gonna be played on Saturdays, Thursdays, Fridays in that building? That’s my reminder.”
USF refuses to shy away from investing in the modern college football landscape. The budget for the on-campus stadium was $348.5 million and required significant outside fundraising. But the stadium isn’t USF’s only fundraising target. The Bulls are also one of the more aggressive American Conference spenders when it comes to the transfer portal. In Hartline’s first offseason in Tampa, he landed the No. 1 ranked transfer portal class in the conference per 247Sports, bringing in several former 5-star and 4-star recruits such as defensive end C.J. Hicks and wide receiver Bryson Rodgers.
“When recruits come on campus, we talk about all these things we want to accomplish, and it sounds good, but that’s kind of putting your money where your mouth is,” Hartline said. “In times where people are canceling facilities or canceling enhancements to pay for rosters, at South Florida we’re doing both.”
While there are long-term benefits to investing an on-campus stadium, the move may come with one significant tradeoff. Playing in an NFL venue at Raymond James Stadium helped South Florida regularly attract marquee non-conference opponents. In the past 10 seasons alone, the Bulls hosted Alabama, Florida, BYU, Wisconsin, Miami (FL), Boise State, Georgia Tech, and Illinois. Louisville is slated to visit Tampa in 2027 and Notre Dame in 2029, but both scheduling contracts were finalized prior to the Florida Board of Governors’ 2023 approval of the on-campus stadium.
Hartline believes all tradeoffs associated with USF Bulls Stadium — including the ability to schedule premier non-conference games — are worth it.
“There’s only positives to having an on-campus stadium, period,” Hartline said. “For me, I think the power of having, frankly, your home — it’s yours. Your ability to walk into that stadium and walk past the bull and understand this is our home. You’re entering our home. I have not been a part of using an off-campus stadium, so I can’t speak of my experience at Raymond James, but we’re very prideful of that place. We appreciate being in that space, but there’s just something a little different to always being in your space, so I’ll always trade that for the markup games if that’s the case.”
When Alabama visited South Florida in 2023, over 65,000 spectators flocked to Raymond James Stadium to witness the Crimson Tide escape the Bulls in a tough, defensive slugfest. By comparison, USF Bulls Stadium is expected to house roughly 35,000 fans.
If luring marquee opponents like Alabama becomes more challenging in the campus environment, Hartline suggested two options — one, renting Raymond James Stadium for select games, or two, expanding the capacity of USF Bulls Stadium.
“If that’s the case, we’ll just go rent out Raymond James for a weekend,” Hartline said. “So, if they want to play, we’re up for it. But the stadium is at a great capacity. We have the ability to grow it. So we’re gonna win some football games, get a lot of excitement and we’re gonna add 20 more thousand on there or 30 or 40 or 50 or whatever and make it as big as we want to make it.”
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