HONOLULU — South Florida receiver Sean Atkins had to check over his shoulder at the scenery and glance at the geolocator on his phone a couple times to make sure that present circumstances were, in fact, reality.
The 5-foot-10 Atkins walked on at the Tampa-based school in 2019 and over the course of six years built himself into an all-conference target at slotback, all with the same Bulls program — a rare tale in modern times of college football.
Looking out over Waikiki Bay at the Hawaii Bowl introductory press conference at The Royal Hawaiian on Friday, Atkins smiled as he took stock of how far he’d come, in both figurative and literal senses.
This was the payoff.
“It means everything to me,” Atkins, of Viera, Fla., told Spectrum News. “You go play college football for experiences like this and starting out from the bottom, I just appreciate everything. I never thought I would be here (in Hawaii), especially from football. Being able to have such an impact on the field in the game. Super grateful for grateful for that and to be here.”
That stands in contrast to San Jose State’s consensus All-America receiver Nick Nash, who announced on Wednesday he was opting out of the game to focus on his pro career. SJSU is also without two cornerbacks and its backup quarterback.
Atkins has 2,063 career receiving yards and needs 74 in his career finale at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Clarence T.C. Athletics Complex to become USF’s career leader.
He became the first 1,000-yard receiver in program history in 2023 as an All-American Athletic Conference second-teamer and posted 677 this season to make the third team.
In an age of postseason portal transfers and bowl opt-outs, Atkins stressed that the Bulls (6-6) wanted to be here to face San Jose State (7-5) in an ESPN-televised game.
“I don’t feel like a lot of people ended up leaving. And I just feel like all the guys really enjoy playing football with one another and just kind of playing for Coach (Alex) Golesh, I feel like we have a unique group and can’t wait to play.”
Golesh said he admires SJSU's first-year coach Ken Niumatalolo, the winningest all-time coach at Navy who enters this game mere days after the passing of his father.
USF seeks to become the third straight team from the South to make the long journey to the islands (over 4,600 miles in USF's case) and prevail over a Western U.S. team in the Hawaii Bowl; Middle Tennessee beat San Diego State 25-23 in 2022 and Coastal Carolina topped San Jose State 24-14 last year.
Golesh, the Bulls’ second-year coach, said managing the travel via a 12-hour direct flight from Tampa and associated logistics were one of the program’s biggest emphases heading into the trip.
USF, treating the game as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, even added a second plane so some athletic department staff members didn’t get left behind. The Bulls were all business in the Boca Raton Bowl last year, blanking Syracuse 45-0.
“The travel piece was probably what we spent a lot of time working through,” Golesh said. “We’ve got a really, really good operations team. It’s their second time here in the last two weeks; they came out a week and a half ago just to make sure logistically it was all set up right.”
Golesh said USF would try to replicate a normal game week after the Bulls arrived on Wednesday. They treated Thursday as a typical game week Monday and got in a practice Friday at Farrington, where they will train until gameday at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex.
The weather in Florida is similar, Golesh pointed out, aside from the humidity.
“I think the adjustment now is over,” Golesh said. “We’ve got to go to work and prepare as we would for a normal game.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.