ESPN College Football

I admit it. I was fooled by South Florida. Again.

Maybe it's all those Florida-bred athletes or the flashy early-season performances that draw me in, convince me the Bulls have arrived as a national power. Then they collapse in midseason and prove themselves a fraud.

At least I'm not alone. Poll voters placed South Florida No. 2 last October, which the team responded to by immediately losing three straight. This year would be different, we were told. This time, the players knew how to handle the pressure of the spotlight. So what happened? The Bulls rose to No. 10 in the rankings and have since lost three of four, with the only victory coming over hapless Syracuse.

South Florida (6-3, 1-3) is in seventh place in the Big East. Early-season aspirations of a BCS game have faded into hopes for an invite to the St. Petersburg Bowl. All national credibility has vanished, and pollsters will likely think long and hard about ranking the Bulls among the nation's best anytime soon.

"We're not quite at the bottom of the Big East, but pretty much the bottom," coach Jim Leavitt said after his team's latest loss, a 24-10 spanking at Cincinnati on Thursday night.

Big East opponents have clearly figured out how to scheme Leavitt's team. First, get pressure up the middle on quarterback Matt Grothe while making sure to contain him with your outside rush guys. Get hands in his face and make him force bad throws. Grothe has six interceptions in his team's three losses, including three against Cincinnati.

"That's what you have to do if you want to beat South Florida," Bearcats coach Brian Kelly said. "You've got to keep him in the pocket and not let him get outside. He's 6-foot-1 and not 6-5, so you've got to make it tough for him to see his receivers."

While the Bulls' defensive front remains perhaps the best in the league, teams have learned that they can keep in extra blockers and still fire away at a subpar secondary. Pittsburgh, Louisville and Cincinnati all had success throwing deep on the South Florida cornerbacks. Against Cincinnati, the Bulls had two pass interference penalties on plays where the receiver still caught the ball.

And if all else fails, just wait for South Florida to beat itself, which it often does with mindless penalties and shaky playcalling. After his team got stuffed on two straight runs from the Cincinnati 8-yard line on Thursday night, Grothe looked toward the sidelines with hands outstretched and palms up, appearing to ask the coaches, "What are we doing?"

Leavitt has done a wonderful job of building this program from scratch, but the Bulls have not lost fewer than four games in a season since they first joined a conference in 2003. They are 2-6 in their last eight Big East games that don't involve Syracuse.

"It's getting real old," defensive end George Selvie told the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday night. "We start out real good at the beginning of the season, then we get into Big East play and start losing games. We just can't have that."

And I can't get fooled again by South Florida. Not until next year, at least.