I know Tampa is a hot wasteland, but out of all those schools, it's got to be the easiest school to recruit to. I don't care how shitty that coach is.
USF has been struggling to get an on-campus stadium built. They have zero fan support at Raymond James, and UCF has been taking control of Central Florida for the past few years. So much so that a recent poll has UCF tied with Miami for the third most popular team in the state.
USF got greedy and ditched Leavitt and didn't invest in an on campus stadium like UCF did. Combine that with a couple of bad coaching hires (I guess the jury is still out on the new guy), and voila, USF is pretty much relegated to their fate as an also ran for the remainder of time.