The voice of USF Athletics, Jim Louk, will routinely put down his radio headset and pick up the pen to share his perspective on the history of USF Athletics.

Louk has been broadcasting games for 27 years and is the resident historian in the Athletics Department hallways... So this week he remembers 21 in a Row!

USF football opened a new season on Sept. 2, 2000 with a home game against Jacksonville State. It wasn't a very memorable game; pretty much an early season tune-up for the Bulls. If you were there, you may not remember much about it; I know I don't.

I couldn't even find any tape of it.

The final was 40-0 Bulls. But that game was more meaningful than we thought at the time. It touched off an unbelievable run at Raymond James Stadium; a run that wouldn't end until more than three years later.

During that time span the Bulls played 21 home games.

And won every one of them.

Home field success is nothing new to the Bulls, even at Tampa Stadium where they played the program's first nine home games. USF went 6-3 at the old stadium, with the most memorable game being the 80-3 win over Kentucky Wesleyan on opening night in 1997.

Since then, the Bulls have gone to battle 72 times at Raymond James Stadium. They've won nearly 80 percent of the time (57-15) and have only one season (2004) with a losing home record. But even those numbers pale in comparison to the 21-game run from 2000-2003.

Think about it a minute … you could have attended every home USF football game for just under four years without seeing a Bulls loss. After Hofstra on Nov. 13, 1999 and until TCU on Oct. 10, 2003, the Bulls were perfect at home.

There were some scary moments in the streak. The Bulls had to knock off Troy State (as they were then called) on Sept. 20, 2000. Troy State was ranked No. 1 in America at the I-AA level (no FBS or FCS then) but the Bulls won 20-10 thanks in part to a game-saving Anthony Henry interception. James Madison, Liberty, Western Kentucky and Austin Peay went down easier that year, capping a perfect 6-0 home season. Bill Gramatica's 63-yard field goal came in the Austin Peay game on November 18.

The 2001 season might have had the strangest schedule in Bulls history. Thanks to some re-scheduling due to the events of 9/11, the Bulls wound up playing their last six games at home, never travelling again after an October 6 date at Utah. After beating North Texas at home earlier in the year, the Bulls ran through Connecticut, Southern Utah, Liberty, Houston, Western Illinois and Utah State in succession to end the season. Not even a close call there; the smallest margin of victory was 18 points. That made 13 in a row at home to end the season.

2002 was a little tougher. The Bulls upgraded their schedule that year and played a few Conference USA teams in preparation for joining that league for football.

The first opponent was Florida Atlantic, and except for a one hour lightning delay, the evening was routine; 51-10 Bulls.

There were two close calls later that year; in October a last-second Southern Miss field goal attempt went wide to preserve a 16-13 Bulls win. The biggest scare came on Nov. 9, 2002. The Bulls beat the Memphis Tigers 31-28 after a last-second, game-winning Memphis touchdown was called back due to a penalty.

Click here for the USF - Memphis game program.

Also falling in Tampa that year were Northern Illinois, Charleston Southern, and the 25th ranked team in the nation. Bowling Green, coached by Urban Meyer, became the first nationally ranked Division I-A team to lose to USF. The 2002 season ended with a 9-2 mark and 19 wins in a row at home.

The 2003 home season started quietly enough. The Bulls played far from their best, but had enough to beat Nicholls State 27-17 for No. 20 in a row.

2003 Souvenir Football (Click to enlarge)

On October 4, USF won their inaugural Conference USA game in dramatic fashion over Louisville 31-28 in double overtime, touching off another streak of sorts. It was their first of three double overtime wins that season.

Next up was a tough one…TCU on a short week. On October 10, in front of just over 33,000 fans, the Bulls fell 13-10 ending the streak. (For good measure, the Bulls would avenge the TCU loss the following year in Fort Worth with yet another double overtime win, when TCU messed up the snap on an extra point attempt).

The home win streak lasted just 34 days short of four years. It covered 21 games and featured the Bulls' first win over a top 25 Division I-A team, their first win over a No. 1 ranked Division I-AA team, and their first ever Conference USA win. Twelve of the 21 victories were by 20 points or more.

When looking back and analyzing records, we tend to look at individual seasons or coaching tenures rather than calendar dates. But a look back to the days between November 1999 and October 2003 shows something pretty special in Bulls football history: Nearly four years without a home loss - another part of the remarkable journey of USF Football.

GO BULLS!