Imagine you had been asleep for the last couple of years and awakened to see how badly USF was playing against Rice.
As you watched the carnival of missed tackles, gashed special teams, and an offense stuck in the mud, you might assume nothing about the Bulls had changed since you dozed off and asked why Jeff Scott hadn’t been fired yet.
Against a three-win Rice team playing its final game for a lame-duck coach, the Bulls were out-coached, out-fought, and ultimately defeated at a nearly empty Rice Stadium 35-28.
Don’t be deceived by the final score. It wasn’t that close.
“Coming in here, there was every expectation to win. I thought we prepared really well,” USF coach Alex Golesh said. “I thought we had a really good plan going in.”
Well, it didn’t work.
Owls quarterback E.J. Warner threw for 400 yards and three touchdowns – oh wait, that wasn’t the game total, which would have been impressive enough. That’s what he had midway through the third quarter. Whatever defensive coordinator Todd Orlando dialed up to stop Warner didn’t work.
The Bulls’ vaunted running attack was mostly bottled up, and quarterback Bryce Archie struggled to connect with his receivers. Even worse, Archie left the game with 4:44 remaining in the fourth quarter after being blasted by a late hit while sliding down at the end of a scramble.
After a review, officials ruled there was no targeting on the play. That was the right call. It was the end of a tough day for Archie.
“The doctors didn't feel like he was good enough to go back in,” Golesh said.
It wasn’t immediately diagnosed as a concussion.
“He’s got a headache, and we'll evaluate here as we keep going,” Golesh said.
Interestingly, shortly after backup quarterback Izzy Carter entered the game to replace Archie, he threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to Keshaun Singleton that pulled USF within two touchdowns. He followed that with a second TD pass to Michael Brown-Stephens to pull USF to within a touchdown.
Too little, too late.
There was a moment of hope for USF to start the second half. The Bulls, already down by 20, moved 75 yards in seven plays and scored to pull within 27-14. You’re thinking, OK … the Bulls have previously shown they’re a second-half team.
Maybe. Maybe.
But then Quinton Jackson returned the kickoff 47 yards for Rice. Even though the Owls didn’t score on that, it gave them field position and seemed to deflate the budding hope the Bulls might have held.
Rice tacked on another touchdown after a 3-and-out on USF’s next possession, and, well, SPLAT!
The unfortunate thing about this egg-lay is that it obscures the good things USF has done in the second half of the season. After starting 2-4 against a brutal schedule, the Bulls handled the softer portion of the schedule by winning four of five and becoming bowl-eligible. Rice was supposed to be part of that winnable stretch.
A win in this game would have given the Bulls a 7-5 regular-season record and represented an improvement over last year. Instead, it leaves an icky taste for players, coaches, and fans as they look to whatever bowl game awaits.
Golesh is an offensive-minded head coach, so here is a thought about that.
Although he prefers to run first and pass second, his up-tempo approach only works if the quarterback can make defenses respect his passing game. The Owls obviously didn’t believe Archie could beat them, so they used their strong run defense effectively.
The strategy worked.
USF hasn’t looked this feeble on offense since the 14-3 loss to Memphis, and that was while the program was on the run from Hurricane Milton.
National Signing Day is just a few days away, and Golesh needs a bumper crop of new recruits. After that, the Bulls have the extra practice days granted to teams qualifying for bowls.
After this game, we can only say this: They need that.