Kirk Herbstreit has a message for the University of South Florida’s football program: The gig is up.

You’ve been had. The word is out.

You’re good - very, very good - and everyone throughout college football knows it.

“The difference from this year and last year’s 9-4 season for USF is now they’re no longer a cute story,” said Herbstreit, an ESPN analyst and a former Ohio State quarterback. “Now they are a legitimate team that everybody wants a piece of.

“Once upon a time, they had only a couple of footballs and, what, a trailer? It was like a fun story. Well, it’s not a fun story anymore, when you win nine games and people want a piece of you.”

Here’s the rest of the preview story from Monday’s Tampa Tribune. It appears not all of the elements from Monday’s USF preview made it online, so if you have a quarter wedged between the sofa cushions, dig it out. It’ll be worth it (if not, at least you cleaned under the sofa cushions).

Also, for those of you waiting to see how I follow up last year’s “USF would go 9-3 and play Oregon in the Sun Bowl prediction/once in a lifetime guess,” I’ll provide this year’s prediction, complete with win-loss record, bowl game and bowl opponent later this week.

The Total Package: Since there are some folks out there, who just bookmark the blog and don’t always see the entire TBO site, I wanted to link a copy of an in-depth piece that ran in Saturday’s Tribune on incoming USF men’s basketball freshman C Gus Gilchrist, who certainly did not take the most direct route to Tampa.