USF only too glad to silence its critics

[Bullumni]

USF only too glad to silence its critics

Charles Bricker | Sports Columnist

October 14, 2007

TAMPA

SunSentinel

The three-knockdown rule was not in effect, so South Florida coach Jim Leavitt kept punching the life out of Central Florida until, presumably, coach George O'Leary and his players fully understood where they line up in college football's pecking order.

It was already 57-12 with three minutes and 10 seconds to play in this bloodletting when USF took possession of the ball for the 18th time. After two runs, Leavitt called a couple of passes, and third-string quarterback Anthony Severino threw the second for a 28-yard touchdown to Jessie Hester Jr.

Make that 64-12.

Had he chosen a more sympathetic route, Leavitt could have just about run the clock out of ticks at 57-12 with runs on third and fourth down. Certainly O'Leary wasn't going to call a timeout. He was so deflated by this crushing that early in the fourth quarter, trailing 50-10, he punted from the Bulls' 38.

It was the act of a man who wanted to finish this quickly, load his players on a bus and get back to the Land of Mouse.

At least for now, that also ends the sniping at Leavitt's undefeated and astonishing 6-0 football team  sniping that seemed finally last week to get under his thick skin.

It started with that paradigm of integrity, Nick Saban at Alabama, suggesting that USF had emerged to challenge for a BCS bowl spot, and possibly a very heavy-duty bowl spot, by admitting students who could not qualify academically to play in the SEC or ACC.

Then, a few days ago, O'Leary, who was annoyed at the prospect of USF ending the Interstate 4 series, snapped: "What league are they in? The Big East?" As if Leavitt and his school were suffering from a bad case of pretentiousness.

Leavitt blared back at UCF's affiliation with Conference USA: "There are four BCS schools in the state of Florida  Florida, South Florida, Florida State and Miami. Nobody else is in that room."

When the carnage was declared over Saturday afternoon, and about 90 percent of the 60,000 witnesses had gone home by mid-fourth quarter, Leavitt and O'Leary met halfway on the field, shook hands and exchanged a few words, which looked from a distance to be perfectly amiable.

"He is one of the best coaches out there in America," Leavitt later told reporters, brimming with enthusiasm and describing how, when he was just a young pup coaching at Kansas State, he drove to Atlanta to meet O'Leary, then at Georgia Tech.

Leavitt also explained that "I did feel bad about that last series. That's not like me." But he confided a bit of that postgame conversation with O'Leary: "He was just great. He just said, 'Go get them.'"

"Them" meaning Rutgers, which moved to 4-2 and 1-1 in the Big East with an easy win over Syracuse. This is not only going to be a challenging week for Leavitt and the Bulls, but a challenging month and a half.

Three of the next four games, all conference games, are on the road, and they must travel Wednesday to play Rutgers on Thursday night. They then draw Connecticut on the road, come home to play Cincinnati and go to Syracuse.

Leavitt says no problem. He began preparing for this short week two weeks ago and most of his starters got some time off Saturday when the game reached 43-10 in the third quarter.

He'll bring his players back today instead of giving them a day off, run through a light workout, then plug in the game plan Monday and get the heavy hitting and work in Monday and Tuesday.

But they lose another workday Wednesday, when they have to travel. This will be USF's third road game of the season and it did well to defeat Auburn 26-23 on the road Sept. 8, but two weeks ago did not look like top-10 material in a 35-23 victory over Florida Atlantic.

Is there more sniping to come in the weeks ahead? Almost certainly if USF gets by Rutgers to reach 7-0 and begins closing in on one of the premier bowl games.

There's a simmering envy factor out there as South Florida moves from early-season surprise that can't possibly last to midseason power capable of winning 11 games, and it's part of Leavitt's job to make sure his players know this is reality and not some magic carpet ride.

If that means firing back at the snipers or running up 64 points, so be it.

Charles Bricker can be reached at cbricker@sun-sentinel.com

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