South Florida Bulls vs Syracuse Orange Recap

Two games into the B.J. Daniels era, the South Florida Bulls aren't winning pretty... but they're winning.

No one would have mistaken Saturday's 14-point pasting of Syracuse as anything close to a pigskin Picasso, but in the world of South Florida football, there's really no such thing as an ugly win. Victories are always beautiful for Jim Leavitt's lads, because letdowns have all too often sabotaged USF football seasons in the past. The objective of this journey to the Carrier Dome wasn't to look pretty and give off a display of gridiron ballet; no, the point of the northward trek was to bag a Big East victory and get about the business of winning a league title.

Now that the Orange have been squeezed, the Bulls--blessed with a bye week--can now rest up and prepare for the biggest and most defining stretch of their 2009 campaign.

The key to this win was really rather simple: While South Florida did turn the ball over three times, Daniels--who is becoming more comfortable in his role as the new field general for the USF offense--didn't throw a single interception, while managing to hit yet another pass play of over 70 yards. After hitting two 70-plus touchdown passes the week before at Florida State, Daniels delivered an 85-yard bomb to Carlton Mitchell just 18 seconds into the second half. The lightning strike not only added to Daniels's growing confidence; the play was significant on the scoreboard, as it broke up a tense affair and gave the visitors a 21-13 lead under the big top in upstate New York.

That Daniels-to-Mitchell masterpiece served another important function as well: By giving the Bulls something of a cushion, the play forced the Orange to play the second half at an appreciable scoreboard disadvantage. This forced SU coach Doug Marrone to rely on quarterback Greg Paulus, who--in his first year of big-time college football--faced a challenge on Saturday that transcended the duties of his position: More than merely distributing the ball to his receivers, Paulus received his first taste of the pressure that USF's dynamic defensive line can create. After being harassed for most of the afternoon by George Selvie, Jason Pierre-Paul and Co., it's little wonder that Paulus threw five--count 'em, FIVE--interceptions, one of them taken to the house for the Bulls on a pick-six by Pierre-Paul himself.

It's not as though USF has solved its own ballhandling issues; when Cincinnati comes to Raymond James Stadium for the first huge Big East game of 2009 on Oct. 15, the Bulls can't turn the ball over in crucial situations. But on this day in Syracuse, three lost fumbles paled in comparison to the Orange's seven-turnover tally. Because B.J. Daniels played his position more cleanly and efficiently than Greg Paulus did, the ambush loss that has so often felled South Florida football in recent years did not come to pass... literally as well as figuratively.

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By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer