South Florida Bulls vs Florida A&M Rattlers Football Recap

South Florida 70, Florida A&M 17

You can only learn so much from a game against a cupcake opponent on a sleepy September night when the rest of the nation’s attention is riveted on other games. However, to the extent that the South Florida football team could derive some small degree of meaning from a glorified scrimmage against a paycheck recipient, the boys from Tampa did pretty well for themselves in week three of the ever-evolving season.

Proving that the win over Notre Dame and their domination of Ball State the following week were no flukes, the South Florida Bulls continued to show enormous improvement in year two under head coach Skip Holtz by absolutely dominating in-state FCS school Florida A&M. The Bulls racked up a gaudy 745 yards of total offense en route to a 70-17 win over the Rattlers. Quarterback BJ Daniels had his best statistical game as a Bull, throwing for 382 yards and four touchdowns and rushing for another. Transfer running back Darrell Scott also had his best game in Tampa, rushing for 146 yards and three touchdowns, including a 56 yard run early in the second quarter. After struggling to move the ball for the entirety of the 2010 season, the Bulls have made a quantum leap offensively in 2011. While the opponent was not much of a match for South Florida, the Bulls didn’t exactly run up the score on anyone in 2010. Now the offense is getting balanced production from both the running and passing games and looks increasingly dominant as the weeks roll by.  

South Florida has regularly struggled with nuts-and-bolts execution in the past. The Bulls would move in fits and starts, powered by bursts of brilliance but then hamstrung by lulls and lapses that would hijack the feel and flow of each gameday encounter. South Florida needed to operate more smoothly and seamlessly as an offensive unit, and that’s what Holtz and his staff got from this contest, a 53-point blowout that wasn’t padded with late scores. USF controlled the tempo from start to finish and gave at least a slight indication that it can do better in this year’s Big East.

Defensively, the Bulls allowed just 181 yards to the Rattlers despite rotating in a number of younger players very early in the second half. The Bulls picked off FAMU quarterback Austin Trainor once, forced a fumble, and also returned a blocked punt for a touchdown. The Bulls improve to 3-0 and moved up in both the AP and USA Today Coaches Polls. They appear to be one of, if not the best, teams in the Big East and will likely face West Virginia in a de facto conference title game late in the season.

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By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer