USF's Rob Higgins Brings New-School Thinking, Boundless Energy to Bulls Athletics
Rob Higgins is a unicorn.
He's the only person in college sports to hold the title "CEO of athletics." To be sure, do not call him an athletic director. When the University of South Florida named him to the CEO position on Sept. 9, 2025, it signaled a forward-looking perspective and growth mindset by the Bulls' brain trust.
Indeed, in the post-amateur era, revenue streams and NIL funding are the name of the game. USF tapped Higgins, former executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, to lead its athletic department. He brings experience from two Super Bowl host committees and the enthusiasm of a football recruiter. The fact that he's a USF alum who served as a Bulls ballboy during his youth only enhances the fit.
He's not a mere stakeholder at USF. He's a full-on evangelist for the Bulls.
Athlon Sports caught up with Higgins at a recent caravan stop at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus to discuss his trailblazing vision, his streak of high-profile coaching hires and the Bulls' on-campus football stadium project. Here's what transpired:
[Editor's note: The following transcription has been lightly edited for readability.]
Athlon Sports: How does your role as CEO differ from an old-school, traditional athletic director?
Higgins: Well, I think college athletics has evolved over the last three years, over the last five years, 10 years, and what you're seeing now is the youth and amateur days of old are turning into a much more professionalized and modernized entity. When you're dealing with a nine-figure business, it needs to be treated as such, and 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. And I think that's what you'll continue to see. The evolution of college athletics is as dynamic as they come. I will open my phone here at some point later on tonight, and something in the world of college athletics will have changed. I think for us to have a modern model that is flexible and adaptable really speaks to who USF is. We will always skate to where the puck is going. We will not rest on our laurels, and it will always be all gas and no brakes.
Athlon: You made several high-profile coaching moves in the past year, hiring Brian Hartline (football), Chris Mack (men's basketball) and Kristy Curry (women's basketball). Can you describe the pursuit of those coaches and why you believe they're the right fit for USF?
Higgins: I think each of those coaching sources were really unique. I think they each needed a customized approach to them, but the commonality between all three was to find the absolute ultimate leader for each of those programs. So we would not settle for anything but the best, which is what Bulls Nation deserves. And we're just so pleased with how each of those processes netted out. To have somebody like Coach Hartline lead our football program is phenomenal. To have Coach Curry leave the University of Alabama to lead our women's program is incredible. And to have caliber of leaders such as Coach Mack to take the reins of our men's basketball program is fantastic. So each of them is truly phenomenal. We could not be more excited for where we're going with each of them at the helm, and just the fruits of their labor in this early short term period has far exceeded every expectation, and it just has continued to revalidate each of those decisions.
I think it's really important to find like-minded individuals that want to be great teammates and that believe in what you're doing. And I think that's where we've hit it off with each of them. And 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, and I think that is so special to have on this journey, and it's so important.
Athlon: A sneak peek at our upcoming [college football] magazine: We've got a section where anonymous coaches talk about other teams in the conference. An opposing assistant in the American Conference mentioned with a lot of respect the resources and the spending at USF, saying it's close to a Power 4 level. If that's accurate, what does it say about your expectations for the program?
Higgins: I think we're so blessed to have phenomenal alignment right now. Alignment is a word that's thrown around a lot within the world of college athletics at the moment. But what I can tell you is the alignment that we have between our trustees with Will Weatherford and Mike Griffin, our president's office with Moez Limayem, and then our athletic leadership, everybody is in sync and pulling in the right direction, and everybody understands the value of investing in college athletics, in the return on investment that can ensue from it. So to have that alignment is incredible. It's something that we don't take for granted, and now our plan is to continue to be the best stewards of that investment that we can possibly be, and maximize that return on investment as much as we possibly can.
Athlon: In what ways is the new on-campus football stadium going to be a game-changer for USF?
Higgins: I think in a lot of different ways. First, I'll just talk from a financial side of things. Right now, Raymond James Stadium, which has been a phenomenal home to us, we truly only get the ticket revenues from it. To have a home of our own like this unlocks a lot of different revenue for us - from premium sales to parking to concessions to increased sponsorship revenues, the opportunities financially are endless for us, and it allows us again to be playing in this new space at the level which all of our stakeholders deserve. But even more so than the financial aspect of it, what it does for the sentiment and the narrative around our university is second to none.
We're a school that has largely, throughout my entire life, been viewed as a commuter school. 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. Again, Raymond James Stadium has been a phenomenal home to us, but to now have this opportunity to have our student-athletes playing on their campus, and have their classmates walk from their nearby dorms or apartments to cheer them on, it does something that's indescribable. You know, we have 400,000 living alumni who are phenomenal. 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, which is transforming on an everyday basis from the moment they get their degrees. Now, to have this stadium and this home that all of us can be really proud of, and to bring them back to campus and give them a chance as a gateway to see everything that's new and different far past USF athletics, I think it's going to just unlock so many different doors for our university and for our community.
Our community's venue portfolio right now is missing that sweet spot from a 35,000-seat range. So it's gonna also, in addition to all the revenues I referenced, it's gonna open us up to outside events that, quite frankly, our community, not only USF, but our community, has not been able to go after. So all those events that we've dealt with in the past throughout the Tampa Bay Sports Commission days, I can tell you, there's already a tremendous amount of interest in the building for that as well. So that's gonna open up and introduce USF to all-new audiences that it's never been exposed to, and then all new revenues that we've never had an opportunity to participate in.
Athlon: You have a Pro Football Hall of Famer and a Buccaneers great in Derrick Brooks serving as your COO. How does his stature in the Tampa Bay community and the sports world benefit USF athletics?
Higgins: Derrick is a Hall of Famer in every sense of the word. He has been an incredible businessman. Over the last couple decades, I've had the opportunity to work with him on countless major events. To name just a few, between the College Football Playoff national championship and the Super Bowl, he and I have been in the trenches together on some of the world's biggest events and curating some of the most important student-athlete experiences that our communities participated in. But more so than all of that, he's the ultimate role model for our student athletes, and so to add somebody of his caliber from a leadership standpoint, as the quality of the person that he is has paid huge dividends already for us, and we're just really appreciative to have him as a teammate.
Athlon: Kind of random, but what are the chances of renewing the "War on I-4" football series with UCF [even though the Knights are] in a different conference? I'm sure the fans would love to see it.
Higgins: As I brought up in the task force for the state university system, I think rivalries are really important to the fabric of college football, and I think college football is really important to the fabric of the Sunshine State. I really believe that the state's best rivalries should be taking place. I think UCF has a clear understanding of where we stand on it and how interested we are in renewing the rivalry, and I will do anything and everything we possibly can to be able to make that happen on an annual basis.
Athlon: [Former Bulls football coach] Alex Golesh ruffled some feathers when he said you can't win a football national championship at USF. How true or untrue is that statement?
Higgins: We can win national championships at USF. 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. I think it's really important that we put a tremendous amount of emphasis on being focused and having the right people in place to deliver. 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.
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This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 8:13 AM.