Can USF recover from last two late losses? The game vs. Kent St. will provide answers

South Florida has moved on from the last-minute loss at UTSA -- maybe.

The Bulls led by a touchdown after the first half but ran only eight plays in the third quarter and saw the Roadrunners take the lead. Halftime is supposed to be about adjustments, especially on the road against a good team.

So while the Bulls are preparing to play Kent State on Saturday night, the question of what went wrong in San Antonio remains a legitimate question. Sure, the Bulls were on the road on a short week after playing on Saturday at home against Temple. But that's life in the American Conference, where Group of 6 teams -- particularly ones with brand names like USF -- are expected to provide midweek programming for content-hungry networks.

I mean, seriously, you don't see Georgia or Alabama -- or even (shudder) UCF -- playing on Thursday night, do you?

Anyway, Hartline didn't fall back on that as an excuse.

"We definitely can play better. They (UTSA) had the same stipulations. Making that assessment (that the task was too difficult) would be we had no chance to win that game, which I don't agree with. So, for us, we did not play well enough. And we got to make sure we take a hard look at that process and see, but maybe we could have done better," he said.

"I think we had about three lapses in drives in the second half that really played a toll coming out of halftime. It's why that happened offensively, and what can we do to get better at that and get that fixed? And then defensively on the second half, how do we not let that kind of happen again?"

Yeah, the Bulls gave up late game-winning drives in their last two games, which is why a certain suburb of Bulls Nation is convinced the sky is falling. Yes, the defensive collapses merits concern, but watching how Hartline operates I'm convinced he is about building a sustainable program instead keeping one eye peeled for the next big thing.

That brings us back to the present.

USF is favored to beat Kent State, and -- frankly -- anything less than a solid performance would raise the volume of alarm bells to ear-shattering levels.

"(They are) pretty decent. Defense is pretty good. They play with a lot of passion. They got enough speed, they got enough toughness. They got enough physicality. I mean, they do a lot of things, which at a very high level," Hartline said of the Golden Flashes.

"Offensively, it feels like, you know, they're just kind of doing a lot going on. The quarterback's very mobile, a willing passer. They got some guys at wide out, they like getting the ball too. So they're dangerous from a return standpoint and a receiver standpoint. They have enough. They have everything they need. Obviously, in the year two with the head coach and their system. I'm sure they're pretty happy with where they were compared to last year."

Maybe so.

But Kent State is a lower-level MAC team. The Bulls are supposed to be an upper-level American Cionference team.

That should be all there is to it.

By late Saturday night, we'll find out if that is true.

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