Palm Beach Post: USF can't be ignored

[Jim Johnson]

USF can't be ignored

By Dave George

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, September 29, 2007

TAMPA  All right, so South Florida's groundbreaking 21-13 win over No. 5 West Virginia on Friday night wasn't technically perfect.

The Raymond James Stadium crew carefully pulled down the goalposts with 30 seconds to play and counting, for instance, while USF quarterback Matt Grothe was busy kneeling out the clock.

Rather than worry about the squelching of a classic college football tradition, the thousands of USF students who stormed over the railings past mounted police officers at game's end merely looked for another target to tote around the field.

Grothe, sporting a mohawk haircut and pleased to play the rebel himself, served the purpose nicely.

Lifted and carried overhead by fans just as he had lifted and carried the 18th-ranked Bulls all night, the sophomore from Lake Gibson High in Lakeland truly savored the joy ride, but with the goofy grin of a leader who expects more.

The Bulls, champions of the PapaJohns.com Bowl last year, want a spot in a post-season game you've actually heard of, and to beat a big-time team there that you treasure, just as they unhinged Auburn three weeks back in overtime.

In short, USF wants it all, and, in this 11th season of fast-forward football, folks around here are beginning to wonder what's taking so darn long.

Friday's mugging of the Mountaineers, a game that South Florida led 21-3 just past halftime, is the brush fire that no one can ignore. Now all that's left is for USF coach Jim Leavitt, who once turned down a chance to coach Alabama, to treat this win, the biggest in school history, as something greater than the Bulls' season-opening win over Elon.

"When we started the season," said Leavitt, "our goal was not necessarily to beat West Virginia. Our goal is to win the Big East championship, and I'm not letting my guard down.

"I know you all want me to take off my shirt and dance and yell and hug and kiss, but I'm real serious about thinking about the next game ... I'm real concerned and I'm thinking about FAU and going down there to play them."

If Leavitt doesn't feel quite safe with his 4-0 record and a climb toward the Top 10, that's fine.

Because of the Bulls, nobody feels safe around here anymore.

Not the defending national champion Gators, the only other Florida team in the AP Top 25.

Not the Hurricanes, who play here in 2009 and probably are questioning the wisdom of that schedule right about now.

Not FSU, which jumped into big-bowl contention some 30 years ago with Bobby Bowden in much the same way USF is doing it today.

Doesn't matter that West Virginia lost Pat White, their lightning bolt of a quarterback, just before halftime and had to go to sophomore Jarrett Brown from Palm Beach Lakes High School. The Bulls won at Morgantown, W.Va., last year while White was plenty healthy, limiting him and fellow Heisman candidate Steve Slaton to 60 combined yards.

This time, West Virginia was limited to one touchdown, a 9-yard pass from Brown to Darius Reynaud, after coming into the game with a scoring average over 49 points. The Mounties, rocked the way they never were in easy romps over Western Michigan, Marshall, Maryland and East Carolina, never knew what hit them.

Same goes for the ESPN2 camera crew, which scanned the stands all night looking for one certifiably sane USF fan. All they found were thousands of raging Bulls glued solid in green and gold glitter, like an entire Mardi Gras parade penned up and panting in one small building.

Oh, that's another thing. Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, had never sold out for a USF home game before. On Friday, for the first time in school history, there weren't enough tickets to go around, even with 67,018 available.

There were USF supporters everywhere in viking-style helmets with enormous bull horns on either side.

That's what the fat lady wears in the opera, right? In symbolic terms, she was sure singing the Bulls' tune this night and didn't wait much past kickoff to get started.

Three-and-out, that was the first effort by the fearsome West Virginia offense. A Mike Ford run for 35 yards, that was the first play for South Florida. If not for five Bulls turnovers in the first half, the stadium would have gone into immediate orbit, but Leavitt's raiders stole a bunch from the Mountaineers, too, including a fumble recovery by Woody George from Glades Central.

In all, there were six West Virginia turnovers, negating an overall total offense advantage of 437 yards to only 274 for USF.

"I thought we had a real good chance to win this game," Leavitt said, his voice even hoarser than normal. "I thought the matchup was there and that we had a real shot at them."

The same could be said of most any team you could line up against USF. Well, maybe except for that other alphabet team with slightly more tradition, USC. And maybe LSU and Oklahoma and Florida.

Oh, but why be a killjoy? This wow is right now, and it's just the beginning. Regardless of what Leavitt says, the next real threat is a Thursday night game at Rutgers on Oct. 18. That's a Big East biggie, and in the neon New York market to boot.

Tell the officials from the PapaJohns.com Bowl they need not spend the money on a ticket. Their services are no longer needed.

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[alumna1210]

I love it: "[The ESPN crew] scanned the stands all night looking for one certifiably sane USF fan. All they found were thousands of raging Bulls glued solid in green and gold glitter, like an entire Mardi Gras parade penned up and panting in one small building."

I'm stoked for our next home game vs. UCF.