FoxNews: Bulls show they belong with Big East's best

[Jim Johnson]

The guy who wrote this article had previously listed USF as among his Top Five Over-rated schools.  How do you like dem Bulls Now??

---

Bulls show they belong with Big East's best

Matthew Zemek

FOXSports.com, Updated 23 minutes ago

If once is an accident and twice is a trend, the verdict from Tampa was unmistakable on Friday night: South Florida is simply better than West Virginia.

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't decisive, but Jim Leavitt's Bulls nevertheless managed to answer the bell and beat the Mountaineers for the second straight season. In Morgantown or at Raymond James Stadium at Tampa; in November or in September; or on a Saturday or a Friday, the Bulls have managed to contain West Virginia's rushing attack and punish Pat White.

Last year, the Mountaineers were ranked seventh when they faced South Florida. This year, Rich Rodriguez's ballclub carried a five-spot into a battle with the Bulls.

It didn't matter.

The new sheriff in the Big East has proven that it can regularly handcuff the league's quickest fleet of backs and receivers ... right out of the top 10.

What was so impressive about South Florida's victory is that its offense didn't play all that well in a game where Matt Grothe figured to determine the outcome. With the heavyweight showdown between WVU's offense and USF's defense gaining all the attention, Grothe  the unpublicized quarterback who labored in the shadow of Mountaineers signal caller Pat White  needed to expose West Virginia's suspect defense in order to give his team a good chance of winning.

But Grothe didn't impress. He made one superb play when he avoided a sack and threw a gutsy 55-yard touchdown pass to Carlton Mitchell to give USF a 14-0 lead in the second quarter.

The South Florida defense picked off three passes and didn't allow a West Virginia TD until the fourth quarter. (Marc Serota / Getty Images)

Other than that one highlight-reel showcase, however, Grothe had a tough night. He converted a third-and-7 and a fourth-and-short on the Bulls' one sustained scoring drive, but that represented the full extent of his contributions. One play plus one drive equaled 14 total points for South Florida's offense.

When you consider how the Mountaineers' defense got gouged, gashed and gutted last season  especially against Big East powerhouses Louisville and Rutgers  14 points for USF's offense figured to give the Bulls a crushing and possibly lopsided defeat. Add in the four turnovers the Bulls coughed up  two of them on interceptions thrown by Grothe  and the fates created the kind of scenario Rich Rodriguez would have killed for: only 14 points conceded, four big turnovers gained.

The math provided long odds for South Florida against an opponent that wanted revenge after last year's ambush in Appalachia.

Yet, as the college football community conducts its postmortems and postgame assessments, it's South Florida that emerged the winner. How amazing a statement is that? The Bulls  like great teams and athletes, anywhere and anytime  managed to win on a night when they lacked their best stuff. Why? Because they played a hundred times faster and a million times harder than the Mountaineers.

West Virginia rose to prominence in the college football world by playing with much more passion than the Georgia Bulldogs in the 2006 Sugar Bowl, the game that catapulted Rodriguez's program to the mountaintops. On that New Year's night nearly two years ago, West Virginia played with the ravenous and desperate hunger of a team that would do anything to defeat an old-money power from the SEC.

But on Friday night in the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it was Jim Leavitt's crew that displayed the primal intensity and reckless abandon that usually identifies the winner of a high-stakes football game. The Bulls, not the Mountaineers, sold out on every play and pressed the attack with uncommon fearlessness. By hitting hard and then harder, USF's entire defense  front four, linebackers and secondary  laid hard hats on West Virginia ball carriers to pop loose the pigskin and snag six turnovers before the night was over.

Whether it was Ben Moffitt coming up with interceptions, Jarriett Buie dominating up front, George Selvie wreaking havoc on the edge, or Richard Clebert clogging up the middle, everyone wearing a green shirt played physically superior football in his given matchups and assignments.

West Virginia's normally formidable offensive line once again got owned and outplayed by USF's defense, coached by coordinator Wally Burnham. If West Virginia's offense makes most defensive coordinators violently sick, Burnham has clearly found his own personal antidote. The end result is another defining statement win for the Bulls and for Leavitt, a coach whose reputation grows with every signature win South Florida manages to pull off.

The Big East is left with a mixed bag. On one hand, the league is growing by proving that it can cultivate quality depth. South Florida's ascendancy is undeniably good for the conference. However, a league also needs its established teams to stay strong, and while West Virginia won't exactly fall off the map after this loss, there's also no denying that the Mountaineers  along with recently disgraced Louisville  will fail to give the league's showcase November matchups the sizzle and sex appeal they unquestionably need.

With the month of September not yet over, it's quite possible to say that Rutgers could face just one really tough conference matchup ... no, not at West Virginia, but against a bunch of Bulls who just keep running through new obstacles. After handling the Mountaineers, who's to say South Florida won't have even more surprises in store over the next two months?

Link to Story

[BiggTipp]

If one's an accident and two's a trend, the verdict from Tampa was unmistakable on Friday night: South Florida is simply better than West Virginia.

link for the rest of the story:

http://cfn.scout.com/2/685033.html

[eebullman]

"In the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers"    Yuck....