USF’s Rob Higgins is building something different in Tampa — and the fan base is buying in

Rob Higgins doesn’t want you to call him an athletic director.

When the University of South Florida named him to lead its athletics department on Sept. 9, 2025, the title on the door read CEO of athletics — the only one of its kind in college sports. It was a deliberate choice, and Higgins wants you to understand why.

“When you’re dealing with a nine-figure business, it needs to be treated as such,” Higgins told Athlon Sports editor in chief Thomas Neumann in a recent Q&A. “We need to make sure we have a holistic approach that focuses on a variety of different factors — that it’s so much more than just directing programs.”

Eight months in, the early returns suggest the title isn’t just branding. Higgins — a USF alum and former Bulls ballboy who spent years running the Tampa Bay Sports Commission — has moved fast on three fronts that define modern college athletics: coaching, infrastructure and culture.

And his fan base has noticed.

The hires

Higgins landed Brian Hartline to run the football program, lured Kristy Curry away from Alabama for women’s basketball and brought in Chris Mack for men’s basketball — three high-profile hires in rapid succession.

“We would not settle for anything but the best, which is what Bulls Nation deserves,” Higgins told Athlon Sports. “I think there’s two types of people. I think there’s the type of people that want to sustain and repeat history, and then there’s those that want to create it. And each of these leaders understands that we’re in the history-making business.”

He also added a Pro Football Hall of Famer to the front office: Derrick Brooks, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers great, as chief operating officer. Higgins and Brooks worked together on some of the biggest events in sports — the College Football Playoff national championship and the Super Bowl among them.

“He’s the ultimate role model for our student athletes,” Higgins told Athlon Sports.

The stadium

USF is building a $348.5 million on-campus football stadium — 35,000 seats, scheduled to open in 2027. After three decades as tenants at Raymond James Stadium, 30 minutes from campus, the Bulls are getting a home of their own.

Higgins didn’t sugarcoat what the current arrangement has cost them.

“We’re a school that has largely, throughout my entire life, been viewed as a commuter school,” Higgins told Athlon Sports. “We’re a school that’s had an inferiority complex, and we really have only leaned into that over the last three decades by playing our home games 30 minutes away.”

The financial case is straightforward. At Raymond James, USF gets ticket revenue and not much else. An on-campus stadium unlocks premium seating, parking, concessions and sponsorship revenue the program has never had access to. The 35,000-seat capacity also fills a gap in the Tampa Bay market’s venue portfolio, opening the door to outside events.

But Higgins sees the bigger play as cultural.

“We have 400,000 living alumni who are phenomenal,” he told Athlon Sports. “Three quarters of them live within a 150-mile radius, and quite frankly, there hasn’t been a lot of compelling reasons for them to come back and visit the university.”

That changes in 2027.

The buy-in

A recent fan sentiment survey of American Athletic Conference programs, published by Darrien Starling on Before Saturday, put a number on what USF fans are feeling. The survey is a fan sentiment snapshot, not a scientific poll, but the signal is clear.

Among USF respondents, 95.3 percent approved of the athletics CEO’s job performance. The average communication score was 9.6 out of 10 — tied with North Texas for the highest mark in the survey. And 81.4 percent said Higgins is visible enough to the fan base.

“South Florida showed one of the clearest buy-in signals in the entire survey,” Starling wrote. “This was not just approval. It was approval paired with high communication scores and strong visibility numbers.”

The context across the American makes USF’s numbers stand out even more. Tulane — which has won and been nationally relevant — drew just 7.5 percent approval and a 1.7 communication score. UAB came in at 1 percent approval. Temple posted zero.

“That tells me success does not automatically make fans feel connected to leadership,” Starling wrote of the Tulane result. “Winning helps, but it does not always answer every question fans have about where the department is headed.”

USF hasn’t won yet. What the survey suggests is that the fan base believes it’s about to — and that they can see the plan.

Starling’s caveat: “Once fans buy into a big vision, they start expecting the results to match the ambition. That is a good position to be in, but it is not a low-pressure one.”

The rivalry

There is one item on Higgins’ agenda that he can’t solve on his own: the War on I-4.

USF and UCF haven’t played since 2022, when the Knights left the American for the Big 12. Higgins has been publicly pushing for the series to return — including at a Florida Board of Governors Task Force on Intercollegiate Athletics meeting, where he made a pitch for codifying state rivalries as revenue generators.

“Those rivalries are huge not only for our university, but also for potential revenue,” Higgins said at the task force meeting, as reported by Athlon Sports. “We need to continue to keep our eye on revenue generation and protecting those rivalries — and/or reinstating them.”

UCF athletics director Terry Mohajir responded with an offer — but not the one Higgins is looking for.

“I’ve had discussions with both Rob Higgins and former AD Michael Kelly about different options for playing each other,” Mohajir said in a statement to Athlon Sports. “The biggest challenge for us is trying to maintain as many home games in our stadium as possible.”

UCF plays nine Big 12 conference games and is required to schedule at least one Power 4 non-conference opponent. That leaves no room for a road game against a Group of Five school — even one 90 miles up the interstate.

Mohajir’s offer: a game at UCF’s Acrisure Bounce House. No return trip to Tampa.

“I’ve offered a future game at our stadium to Rob and am awaiting a response,” Mohajir told Athlon Sports.

UCF leads the all-time series 8-6 and has won the last six meetings. USF won the first four, back when the Bulls were in the Big East and UCF was still in Conference USA. Once the programs shared the American, the Knights went 8-2 against USF.

Higgins isn’t backing down.

“I think UCF has a clear understanding of where we stand on it and how interested we are in renewing the rivalry,” Higgins told Athlon Sports, “and I will do anything and everything we possibly can to be able to make that happen on an annual basis.”

The standard

When Higgins was asked about former USF coach Alex Golesh’s statement that you can’t win a football national championship at South Florida, he didn’t hedge.

“We can win national championships at USF,” Higgins told Athlon Sports. “It starts with believing that it’s possible, and then it’s making sure that we’ve got great coaches and leaders in place that have that mentality and that will roll up their sleeves to make it happen.”

Then: “We will stop at nothing to accomplish things that others feel are impossible, and that’s who USF is. That’s who we will always be.”

Eight months in. CEO, not AD. Three major coaching hires. A Hall of Fame COO. A $348.5 million stadium rising out of the ground. A fan base that approves at 95 percent. And a rivalry he’s not done fighting for.

Rob Higgins is building something in Tampa. The next part is proving it on the field.