Bulls Announce Six Captains for 2026 Season
August 30, 2026 | Football
South Florida selects captains and Lee Roy Selmon honoree ahead of season opener
TAMPA (August 30, 2026) – The South Florida football team has selected six captains for the 2026 season. The group consists of three players from each side of the ball, five newcomers and one returning starter.
Linebacker Grayson "Pup" Howard was the leading vote-getter among his teammates, and he's joined this fall by quarterback Michael Van Buren Jr., offensive lineman Caleb Cook, offensive lineman Thomas Shrader, defensive lineman Major Dillard and edge C.J. Hicks.
Van Buren Jr., Cook, Hicks, Howard and Dillard all joined the Bulls this offseason. Shrader started 13 games last season at left guard after joining the program after spending the 2024 season at Appalachian State.
In addition to naming captains, the Bulls also announced over the weekend that Michael Williams, a fifth-year senior and graduate student, will be this year's Lee Roy Selmon honoree. Williams in a 33-game veteran at defensive end and returned from an early-season injury last fall to see action in six games and register 19 tackles.
The Selmon honoree is selected based on the criteria of integrity, leadership, athletic achievement, academic excellence and service to others – all values that its namesake – Lee Roy Selmon – personified.
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About South Florida Football
The South Florida football program first took the field in 1997 and will play its 30th season in 2026.
In 2025, the Bulls went 9-4, earned a third straight bowl appearance, made the program's first College Football Playoff ranking appearance, and were ranked four times in the weekly Associated Press Top 25 poll. South Florida completed construction on a new $22-million Indoor Performance Facility in 2023, and construction is in progress on an on-campus stadium and football operations center broke slated for completion by 2027.
The Bulls have posted 18 winning seasons, earned 16 All-America selections (including two consensus selections, the last coming in 2021), and 35 first-team all-conference honorees. South Florida has had 30 players selected in the NFL Draft, while the Bulls have made 13 bowl game appearances (going 8-5), tied for the third-most nationally in the first 25 seasons of a program's bowl eligibility. South Florida posted back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2016 and 2017, logging a program-record 11-2 mark in 2016, while finishing both seasons ranked in the Top 25. The Bulls spent a program-record 20 straight weeks ranked in the Top 25 during the 2016 and 2017 campaigns and reached as high as No. 2 in the AP rankings during the 2007 season.
