Back home after extended hurricane havoc, USF seeks to regroup against UAB

Hurricane Milton did more than force USF to move its football game against Memphis to Orlando’s Camping World Stadium. The aftermath of the massive storm led to the Bulls extending their stay there two days after the 24-3 loss to Memphis.

Power to the USF athletic complex wasn’t restored until Monday, so the USF traveling party stayed in Orlando to begin work on their game this Saturday against UAB at Raymond James Stadium. They got home late Monday night.

“It’s awesome to be back in Tampa,” head coach Alex Golesh said.

The hurricane is a metaphor for what has struck this team since starting the season with two wins in its first three games. After leading Miami for much of the first half in the fourth week of the season, the Bulls have been outscored 97-13 over the last ten quarters.

Golesh attributed much of the trouble to poor execution on offense.

“Offensively, you could play really, really hard and not execute, and it looks like what it looked like. It resulted in three points,” he said.

Fun fact: Of USF’s 14 drives against Memphis, eight ended in three-and-outs.

OK, that's not so much fun because that won’t beat anybody.

While the defense played well against the explosive Memphis offense – especially given the number of short USF drives – Golesh was asked if slowing the Bulls’ trademark up-tempo offense could give the defense time to rest.

He wasn’t buying that.

“(Slowing down) is the first question that comes up, and it doesn't change the execution. Part of it, you go slow, the drops are still the drops. You go slow, the fumbles are still the fumbles. It comes down to execution, whether you're going really fast, whether you're going slow.”

For those into reading tea leaves, it looks like junior Bryce Archie will start again at quarterback as Byrum Brown continues to recover from a leg injury suffered against Tulane.

“You know, Byrum is working. He's practicing. I think at the end of the week, we'll have a much better feel for how he feels,” Golesh said.

“But it's hard if he's not totally healthy for him to be able to do what he does. And so, is he healing? Is he mentally in it, is he physically in it? We'll see what it looks like at the end of the week.”

No matter who the quarterback is, the Bulls simply have to get their running game back in gear.

After rushing for 369 yards at Southern Mississippi, the Bulls have ground to a halt. In the three games since then, they have combined for only 209 yards, including just 50 over the last two games.

As the saying goes, that dog don’t hunt.

“That's such a big piece of what we do, how we do it, and we've executed really, really poorly in terms of whether it's a block off up front, whether it's a running back, or whether it's a quarterback,” Golesh said. Until the Bulls get that area fixed, they will continue to struggle.

You can shake off one game where the run game was poor. Two straight becomes more of a concern. If it's three in a row, you start reaching for the fire alarm.

If it's four straight, you pull the alarm.