South Florida has had its way with UAB the last couple of years, winning the last two meetings with the Blazers by a combined 40 points.
So when the two teams meet at noon Saturday at Raymond James Stadium, it should be easy pickings for the Bulls, right? Well, if you’ve followed USF football this season, you know nothing comes easy. The Bulls have often looked less like a well-oiled machine against teams everyone figures they should easily put away, and UAB is actually knocking on the door of respectability for first-year head coach Alex Mortenen.
The Blazers are. 4-3 overall and 2-1 in the American Conference, which puts them ahead of the 2-2 Bulls. But while USF is a work in progress, there is a reason to look a little deeper under the hood. Their two conference losses both came late in the fourth quarter, including in the closing seconds on the road at conference co-leader UTSA.
The Bulls also pinned the only conference loss on Army.
All of this is a way of saying that while USF fans need to be wary of every opponent, the Bulls have reason for optimism with five games remaining.
"We (want to) play our best football in November, so we're getting close to that situation. You work hard all year to make sure the games you're playing late in the season are meaningful. Now we find ourselves in that spot. We're going to do a great job of handling each week and focus on being 1-0 each week,” GoUSFBulls,com reported coach Brian Hartline said in his weekly news gathering,
USF continues to lead the conference in scoring defense by a healthy margin. The Bulls surrender just 15.1 points per game, seven points better than second-place Army. The Blazers are no slouch though. They lead the American in total defense and are 31st nationally; the Bulls are 38th.
USF also is coming off an open date, following a 29-2 win over Kent State. That gave the player and coaching staff extra time to correct mistakes and focus on the stretch drive.
Most of the grumbling about the Bulls’ pedestrian offense — eighth in the conference — focuses on play-calling and coordinator Tim Beck. But it’s a good time to remember that Hartline said his offense would look nothing like the jet-fueled attack favored former coach Alex Golesh. Hartline promised a more traditional approach, and that’s what fans have gotten.
One interesting stat is that jumps out — USF quarterbacks have zero interceptions in 183 attempts. But Hartline mused that they overly cautious.
We may find out Saturday if that changes.
“Minimizing the call sheet will help with that,'' Hartline said. "We've got to throw it better and we've got to catch it better. We've got to execute better,” he said. It's not a lack of effort in recent weeks, but execution comes down to the coaches. We've had some decent (plays) called that could have been massive plays that didn't materialize.
“Why didn't (they) materialize? We dove into that, and we feel like if we minimize the amount of calls each week, hopefully it increases their opportunity to (be executed) more frequently. … We want to make it simpler, not easier, but simpler will hopefully allow higher execution.''
With a win Saturday — the Bulls are favored by 7.5 points — USF becomes bowl eligible for the fourth straight season. That would tie the second-best bowl streak in program history. But it’s not just about going to second-tier bowl games to fill program time on ESPN. It’s winning conference championships, which the Bulls have yet to do in program history.
It probably won’t happen this year, either. But the remaining five weeks are vital for recruiting and setting a baseline expectation of snapping that streak in 2027.
Most of USF’s goals for this season remain attainable.
But like Hartline said, it requires going 1-0 every week from here on out.
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