USF Stuns Florida State With Bullish Effort

Florida State University never saw this one coming.

The Seminoles were confident they'd handle upstart South Florida in the friendly confines of Doak Campbell Stadium on Saturday.

FSU never saw first-time starter B.J. Daniels coming. Likewise, the Seminoles never saw the South Florida defense coming, and that was a mistake.

The South Florida Bulls, playing FSU for the first time ever, stunned the 18th-ranked Seminoles in every facet of the game and reshuffled the state's football power structure with a 17-7 victory.

Daniels, who played at Tallahassee's Lincoln High, was not the recruit who got away from FSU, he was the player who received no interest from the Seminoles. He got their attention in a BIG way Saturday.

The shifty replacement for former starter Matt Grothe, put a super-human effort into the offense. He ran for 126 yards, and was the first quarterback to do that to a Seminole defense in 23 years.

He passed for 215 yards and two touchdowns, both in the second quarter, to pave the way for this historic USF victory. One of those strikes was a beauty of a 73-yarder to freshman Sterling Griffin.

While FSU struggled with Daniels' dazzling skills, the Bulls defense proved too much for the Florida State offense.

The Bulls put together a carefully orchestrated game plan by coordinator Joe Tresey and that plan slapped FSU's ground game into the Doak Campbell turf. The 'Noles managed a pathetic 15 yards rushing on the afternoon.

USF front four kept the heat on FSU quarterback Christian Ponder all afternoon. He was sacked five times, including once by Jason Pierre-Paul that knocked the ball loose for a recovery by George Selvie at the FSU 13 and set up a short field goal by Eric Schwartz that put the game out of reach.

Daniels was simply amazing in his starting debut, but refused to take credit.

"It's not about me," he said in a soft voice.

"It's about the USF Bulls."

And on this exciting afternoon for USF Nation, it was about the Bulls.

"It was just an incredible effort," coach Jim Leavitt said. "They finished the game. They won under tough circumstances."

The Bulls did that and more.

They out-hit FSU. They out-played FSU.

They simply out-everythinged the Seminoles.

It was simply historic for the 4-0 Bulls.

South Florida Pins Its Hopes On Daniels

Meet Bruce Edward Daniels, known in University of South Florida football circles as B.J.

He is fast, blazing fast, elusive, shifty, powerful and has a heck of an arm for throwing the football.

He is perhaps a reincarnation of an incredible college football player who once graced the field of the old Tampa Stadium. His style of plays bears remarkable resemblance to a former University of Tampa and NFL great.

Travel back 35 years in Tampa football history, if you will. The year was 1974 and it was the senior season for the remarkable Freddie Solomon, dynamic quarterback for the UT Spartans.

We simply referred to him as "The Fabulous One." He was Fabulous Freddie Solomon, speedster extraordinaire.

He filled that old Tampa Stadium, the old Sombrero. The Spartans would draw more than 45,000. Just about everyone wanted to see Fabulous Freddie.

Freddie had UNREAL speed. He was probably a 4.3-second 40 guy IN PADS. His moves were beyond description. His performances would have perhaps made him a Heisman contender at a higher profile school.

Still, Freddie had great success, chosen in the second round of the 1975 draft by the Miami Dolphins where he became a solid wide receiver. He moved to the 49ers where he won Super Bowl rings.

Fast forward to the USF practice fields.

Daniels reminds one of Freddie. He is super-elusive, has killer speed and confidence. He will need every bit of that and more as he has the mountainous task of leading the Bulls' offense against Florida State Saturday in Doak Campbell Stadium.

It's a homecoming for Daniels, a product of Leon High in Tally-town.

Daniels has a quiet manner about him. He is respectful, not brash and has a look in his eye of a confident young man, a soft-speaking assassin, perhaps.

His mettle will be tested by FSU's defense. Daniels will need all his talents and a lot of help from his teammates.

USF offensive coordinator Mike Canales won't hold back with his play calling. "B.J. Daniels is special," he said often during spring practice. Watch Canales looking at Daniels and he can see a gleam in the coach's eye.

Daniels is the real deal but must now replace the most prolific offensive player in the history of the Big East Conference, Matt Grothe, who saw his career end last Saturday night when he was tackled awkwardly and torn an ACL.

This South Florida offense now belongs to Daniels, who has been encouraged and coached hard by the staff and Grothe this week. "They can call me Coach Grothe," Matt said.

Put simply, this is USF's biggest opportunity ever as far as status in the state is concerned. FSU has two national championships and years of success under Bobby Bowden.

But these Seminoles showed their vulnerability when they lost their opener to Miami then again against Jacksonville State, a game they perhaps should have lost.

But now all eyes are on USF, a program that longs for recognition.

And the Bulls go into this battle with Daniels, who perhaps few outside the program will recognize.

But those of us who saw Fabulous Freddie Solomon can look back and remember what he did to opponents and perhaps, just perhaps, B.J. will have a little bit of Freddie in him on Saturday.

He'll need it.

USF needs it.

This is big-time for the Bulls. Very big time.

And they know it.

South Florida Loses Grothe For The Season

It was Jim Leavitt's worst fear.

The Sunday MRI on the left knee of all-everything quarterback Matt Grothe spelled it out in shocking manner:

Torn anterior cruciate ligament.

The 2009 season for the all-time leader in Big East offensive yardage crashed and burned.

And the news ushers in the week that all USF players had marked and circled. This is FSU week. The Bulls make their first-ever trip to Tallahassee for a Saturday game that will let them know how they've progressed in the state's football hierarchy.

This was the game Grothe wanted, but now he'll spectate.

He'll watch his understudy -- B.J. Daniels -- take the helm. He'll watch Daniels perform in the town where he went to high school, against a team he knows well.

But in football, life goes on. The game must go on.

Leavitt, USF's only coach in program history, was subdued after his team's 59-0 thrashing of Charleston Southern Saturday night. "I have kind of a broken heart," Leavitt said. And that's when he thought Grothe might eventually return, thinking the injury was a sprain.

Now it's B.J.'s team, his offense. "B.J.'s the guy," Leavitt said.

Yes, B.J. is the guy.

And he's the guy who will lead this team at Doak Campbell on Saturday.

Just a routine debut.

South Florida's Expected Win Produces Unexpected Loss

The University of South Florida was supposed to be the stuffing out of Charleston Southern on Saturday night and it did, 59-0.

The Bulls were supposed to get out of that contest without any serious injuries and turn their sights toward bigger prizes, FSU and the Big East.

They didn't.

Fate dealt the Bulls a real whammy when all-everything quarterback Matt Grothe, the all-time offensive leader in the Big East, was tackled, bent backwards in an awkward position and suffered a sprained left knee with three minutes left in the half and his team ahead 28-0.

At that point, Grothe had his offense clicking, he was simply Grothe doing what Grothe does, rolling up nearly 150 yards passing in less than 30 minutes of play.

What happened hushed the crowd of around 30,000 at Raymond James Stadium. Surely it hushed every player, every coach.

Grothe was out, backup B.J. Daniels was in.

Daniels has been described by his offensive coordinator, Mike Canales, as "a very, very special player."

He is.

All Daniels did was step in and immediately pick up where Grothe left off. The Buccaneer defense had no answer or him. He racked up 149 yards passing efficiently, he hit 10-of-13 then showed his speed and elusiveness when he ran for 105 yards.

Put simply, Daniels has talent galore. He wears jersey No. 7 because he fancied the moves and athleticism of Michael Vick when Vick played for the Falcons.

By the time the bashing of the Buccaneers was complete, USF had burned up 547 yards total offense and equaled it biggest shutout win in school history.

The players know what Daniels can do and Daniels, likewise, knows what he can do on a football field.

"I did my best not to let the team down, not to let Matt down," Daniels said after his performance.

He didn't let anyone down.

Most likely he'll be the starter when he returns to his home town next week, Tallahassee, where he starred at Lincoln High.

He'll have to lead his team against an FSU squad that shocked and stomped on No. 7 BYU on Saturday night in Provo, Utah, 54-28.

"We did what we're supposed to do," Jim Leavitt said after the team's third straight win of the 2009 season. "We played with more passion, more poise and more focus."

As for the loss of his star quarterback, you could hear the disappointment in Leavitt's voice:

"The win was a double-edge sword. I'd give it up to have not lost Matt but we won't know until he has an MRI. He's incredible, he's special. We knew B.J. is a good player and he'd play well. Right now B.J. is the guy. I have kind of a broken heart. We'll hope for the best."

USF Bulls Need a Huge Win

It is totally time Jim Leavitt's University of South Florida Bulls to quit messing around and get serious about this 2009 football season.

It's time for them to get serious and trample the last of three "warm up" opponents before things begin to heat up.

Here's the deal: a giant cupcake of a team -- Charleston Southern, will place itself in the USF line of fire Saturday night at Raymond James Stadium.

The Bulls need to unload on the Buccaneers, no, not the Pewter Pirates of Raheem Morris, but these Charleston Southern Buccaneers, the 1-AA Buccaneers. USF can't even count this game towards bowl eligibility so the Bulls better show up and fine tune their game.

Matt Grothe, leader of the Bulls and now the all-time leader of offense in Big East football understands.

"We would like to come out," says Grothe, "set the tone early, score some points early and get our defense going. And then we need to move on to bigger and better things."

The bigger of those things is a trip to Tallahassee next Saturday and a game against Florida State. It's on everyone's mind that wears green and gold. It is a huge game for USF with the end result weighing big-time in the state's football pecking order.

But first things first.

Leavitt knows that and has appropriately fed everyone a solid dose of "coach-speak."

"Charleston Southern is very, very capable, very talented, they have size, speed and great athleticism. They had 18 first downs against Florida's defense. We gotta play good football, we need to play better as we get close to the Big East."

For all that size, speed and athleticism, the Buccaneers were crushed by Florida then bullied by Wofford last week.

This is a "clean-up" game for the Bulls. They have a number of facets of their game that need cleaning-up.

The defense needs to show it can stop a running game. There is a strong need to do away with turnover and penalty yards, all those things that can spell defeat when the Bulls move on to take on the bigger boys of Division 1-A.

This is the last of their three "warm-up" games and they have needed them. In the previous two, areas of concern have popped up and need to be addressed.

So USF needs to bring out something other than its C-plus or B-minus game.

The Bulls need to look sharp. They need to play sharp.

And they need to chomp down on and devour this cupcake.

South Florida Win Reveals More Weaknesses

When a team aspires to win the Big East football title, as the University of South Florida does, you take advantage of what are considered "lesser" teams on your football schedule.

You take those "lesser" teams to task, score early and often, pin them down defensively and generally make mince-meat out of them.

That's what Tennessee did to Western Kentucky last week, in a 63-7 Orange landslide.

USF had its shot at the Hilltoppers Saturday night in Bowling Green with terribly unimpressive results.

Sure USF came out with a 35-14 win. Sure Matt Grothe emerged as the new record holder for Big East total offensive yardage. Sure the Bulls are 2-0.

But at the same time, this victory showed more weaknesses than strengths.

When you're the highest paid coach in the Big East, as Jim Leavitt is, your teams are supposed to be prepared and accordingly stomp all over a team like Western Kentucky, a first-year entry into Division 1-A.

The Bulls were supposed to beat the Hill out of the Hilltoppers, but didn't.

They were supposed to shut down these good ole boys from Western, but didn't.

Instead, USF let the Hilltoppers take an early 3-0 lead and hang around through the third quarter, and that won't cut it when the competition heats up in a few weeks.

"Our special teams were not good tonight," Leavitt said right after his team got its second win.

That was an understatement. Two fumbled punt returns, two missed field goals (40, 49) by Delbert Alvarado, another interception thrown by Grothe, nine penalties for 85 yards, and well, you get the picture.

"I wanna play good football," said Leavitt. "We have to get better, we're gonna play much better teams. We're trying to get ready for the Big East."

If that's the case, this USF team has a long way to go. It simply cannot have some quarterback named Brandon Smith running all over the defense for 125 yards. Tennessee allowed this team only 89 yards total offense.

Huge difference.

But it wasn't ALL bad for USF. The Bulls did manage to find a 100-yard rusher for the first time in 16 games. Stocky Mo Plancher toted the ball 18 times for 115 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Both of those TDs were set up by splash plays from receiver Carlton Mitchell. Of the four balls he caught, one went for 50-yards, the other 65.

The Bulls need more of that, a lot more.

Grothe was not great by Grothe standards. Sure he wound up with 261 total yards to pass the great West Virginia star Pat White in the Big East total yardage category. But he was only 13 of 22 in the air with an interception and he has to be better than that against this calibre of competition.

Fortunately for the Bulls, this was supposed to be nothing more than a piece of cake, dessert on the Bulls football menu.

Unfortunately, the Bulls aren't great dessert-eaters. They sometimes choke on the crumbs.

They didn't gobble this one down properly and still have a LOT of work to do.

They get hold of another patsy next Saturday, the guys from Charleston Southern, yes that Charleston Southern that served as the scarificial lamb in the Gators' Swamp two weeks ago.

Another cupcake, another piece of dessert.

The Bulls need to start getting it right and get it right in a hurry.

This sort of performance won't due.

Leavitt knows so.

And he said so.

Expect A Big Night From The Bulls

We'll make the call right now, today.

USF will man-handle the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers Saturday night in Bowling Green, Ky.

The reasons are simple: USF is flat out better, is an advanced program compared to Western and watched film of Tennessee flat-out tearing up the Hilltoppers in Knoxville last week.

Defensive coordinator Joe Tresey watched Monte Kiffin's new defense swarm to the ball, squash Hilltopper backs and receivers left and right on a day that saw Western held to 83 yards total offense.

It will be a record-setting night for USF quarterback Matt Grothe. Barring any catastrophic event, Grothe will become the all-time offensive yardage leader in Big East history. He needs less than 100 yards to pass Pat White's record.

Look for USF offensive coordinator Mike Canales to keep most of his playbook under wraps. He said he would and did against Wofford. USF was very vanilla and look for running back Mo Plancher to get the football early and often.

USF showed no vertical passing game last week. Canales was content to have Grothe short-pass his way around Wofford.

USF has been where Western is going. The Hilltoppers are the newest member of the 120-team of the crew known as FBS teams -- Football Bowl Subddivision -- that's division 1-A to most of us.

Talent-wise, USF simply has too many horses on defense as well. Biggest problem for the Bulls is that they have too many talented defensive ends. Their only vacancy comes due to the broken arm suffered last week by strong safety Jerrell Young. Most likely he'll be replaced by committee.

But on Saturday night, this USF team will continue its series of "warm up" games as it tries to get better, find its groove and know that two weeks from now, the huge test against FSU lurks.

But this week, its all Hilltoppers, all the time.

Look for the Bulls to dominate.

They should win easily.

No excuses.

USF Gets Double Scouting Report

It was simply a great opportunity to scout four "name" opponents on the South Florida schedule Monday.

There was Cincinnati playing at Rutgers and Miami at Florida State.

Given USF's performance against Wofford and the two games mentioned above, this quick, simple assessment:

USF isn't ready for either Miami or FSU. USF is not ready for Cincinnati.

USF is ready for Rutgers.

Cincinnati moved into the favorite's spot in the Big East with an incredible 45-15 wipeout of Rutgers. It was a shocking sight for Rutgers fans, who showed up in mass, 55,000-plus. They saw quarterback Tony Pike dismantle the Scarlet Knights, easily.

Miami and Florida State might have been the best college game of the weekend. USF goes to Tallahassee on Sept. 26 and the Bulls hopefully watched that game and saw that FSU's defense is very vulnerable. If that game showed anything, it's that both FSU and Miami have huge questions with their defensive units.

USF Coach Jim Leavitt voted his team out of the top 25 while Cincinnati, on the strength of its win, jumped to No. 23 in the AP Poll, Miami took the 20th spot.

Good news for the Bulls is that they have two more "warm up" games before taking the bus to Tallahassee.

And that's exactly what Leavitt needs.

USF Was Decent But There's Work To Do

"I'm going to tell Doug Woolard (USF athletic director), 'please, let's not schedule anybody like this again. They play very hard, they believe in their system..."

Bulls coach Jim Leavitt after his team's 40-7 win over Wofford




It could have been better, but it could have been worse.

Wasn't great but wasn't bad, nonetheless it was a win and they'll take it.

"We have a lot of work to do -- there were some flashes there," Leavitt said after taking the home-opener in front of a decent crowd of 40,000-plus at Raymond James, despite weather threats that delayed the opening kickoff 30 minutes and the fact that it was, well, Wofford.

Leavitt was right, his Bulls do have work to do but time is on their side.

Saturday they travel to play Western Kentucky in Bowling Green in the Hilltoppers' newly-renovated Smith Stadium.

USF should be able to notch a second win. The Hilltoppers took a terrible bashing at the hands of Tennessee in Knoxville on Saturday. Monte Kiffin's defense literally took them to the woodshed. Try 83 yards total offense, 49 passing and 34 rushing. What that output got Western was a 63-7 beat down that saw the Vols amass 657 yards total offense.

The Bulls may not be a strong at Tennessee, but they should do well.

Quarterback Matt Grothe functioned well against Wofford, using the short passing game to move his team. He chalked up 155 yards in the air, 44 on the ground and will become the Big East's all-time offensive leader next Saturday, no doubt.

After the fact, Leavitt admitted that perhaps there are bigger games in the back of his mind:

"We didn't work on Wofford as much as we should have. Joe (Tresey, USF defensive coordinator), his defense got turnovers. The defense did a great job, we shut them out for three quarters."

Leavitt said his new and youthful offensive line was "pretty impressive," and it was.

Freshman Kayvon Webster played the entire game in the defensive secondary and fellow frosh Lindsey Lamar caught everyone's eye with his speed on offense, quick moves and a touchdown.

In all, the only negative for the Bulls was strong safety Jerrell Young's broken arm. It will force Tresey to look at a number of options to replace him.

Still, "warmup game" number two awaits the Bulls.

Just call it the second appetizer.

USF Ready To Open With An Appetizer

The new, improved Jim Leavitt says his team needs to play.

His University of South Florida football team is in the "launch" mode, sitting in the gantry, ready to take off in search of bigger and better things.

This 2009 college football season brings opportunity for the Bulls, but they're going to take their time and start out with a few appetizers before they start thinking about the serious entrees.

The Bulls will put their horns into a cute little Terrier of a team called Wofford on Saturday night in Raymond James Stadium.

It should be a chance for Leavitt to see how effective his team can be against a 1-AA opponent.

Sure Wofford is a good little team. It dwells in the Southern Conference with teams like Charleston Southern, Georgia Southern, Elon and the Citadel and sure, App State, the sometimes giant-killer.

Sure, Wofford won nine games last year, but this is USF in its big back yard, Raymond James Stadium and this is USF, with All-America defensive end George Selvie and the the man who would be king of Big East offense -- quarterback Matt Grothe.

USF simply has too much talent to not slap Wofford around in this 2009 opener.

Yes, Leavitt's team needs to play. It needs to find out how well the machine runs.

And it needs to find out how fast it can eat an appetizer.