Rivals Honors Rod Smith as Coordinator of the Week

[USFMikeB]

http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?SID=1144&CID=459975

Smith's aggressive attack pays off

Andrew Skwara

Rivals.com College Football Staff Writer    

Stick to the running game. Grind out long drives. Don't get caught in a shootout. The offensive game plan against Louisville is always supposed to be conservative.

South Florida offensive coordinator Rod Smith took the reverse approach. Smith looked to score quickly, calling risky reverses and a big trick play that all put the ball in the hands of a little-used receiver. The result was a 31-point lead for the Bulls three minutes into the third quarter, which led to a 45-14 blowout over the then-No. 9 Cardinals, who entered the game as a 20-point favorite. It is the most shocking upset of the season so far and earned Smith Rivals.com's Coordinator of the Week.

"We wanted to stay aggressive," said Smith, who was promoted to USF's offensive coordinator in the offseason after four seasons as the passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach. "Louisville is too good of a football team to sit back and slow things down. All week long we talked about being aggressive and going after them. We felt we had some mismatches we could take advantage of and we were going to let our athletes play."

That was obvious by the Bulls second offensive play. Pat Julmiste fired a deep throw to Amarri Jackson, who hauled it in for a 57-yard reception that set up a 1-yard touchdown plunge from Andre Hall.

Two drives later, Jackson took a reverse up the right side of the field 51 yards to put the Bulls (2-2, 1-0 Big East) up 14-0. On the Bulls next possession, the 6-foot-5 wideout took a reverse up the left side 13 yards for a 21-0 edge. He entered the game with two catches for 15 yards.

Smith used Jackson's early success on the ground to bait the Cardinals defense and seal the biggest win in school history. After Chad Simpson returned the second-half kickoff 94 yards to put the Bulls up 31-7, Jackson took another handoff from Julmiste. But this time, he paused behind the line of scrimmage and fired a pass to a wide-open Derek Carter for an 11-yard touchdown catch.

"It didn't surprise me," Smith said of Jackson's performance. "He's young and still learning the game, but athleticism has its advantages and we definitely want to make sure he touches the ball."

Louisville actually ended up having the ball for almost eight minutes more than USF, but the Bulls' big plays were just too much to overcome. Smith's offense ended up matching the Cardinals (2-1, 0-1) with a 6.2 yards per play average and racked up 5.3 yards per rush.

Much of that production can be attributed to Hall. Normally the Bulls main offensive weapon, he didn't have a big game, rushing for a modest 83 yards on 22 carries. But, he touched the ball on five of the team's first seven plays, forcing the Cardinals to pay a little extra attention to him.

"We wanted to establish Andre as quick as possible," Smith said. "Then, it was up to our skill players and thank goodness they made some plays."

Other than Jackson, USF's receivers didn't have to do much. The Bulls attempted just 10 passes the entire game – although they did get two pass interference calls – and consequently never had to worry much about Cardinals star defensive end Elvis Dumervil. The pass-rush specialist entered the game with an NCAA-record nine sacks in his first two games, but didn't even manage a quarterback hit against the Bulls.

"(Dumervil) didn't get a sack on us last year either," Smith noted. "This year we have two new tackles and we double-teamed him a couple of times early on, but mostly left him in one-on-one situations."

[BullGrad95]

Who'd a thunk it!!!!

[bulls96go]

is he good or is this the abberation

i must see much more before i am convinced

but if he scores 21+ against UM i will start believeing

more important if we beat Pitt and WVU then i am on the bandwagon

[bigbull]

I think Rod is doing a great job of allowing our "athletes" to make plays....This is something that Hobbie would never do in my opinion....He would still sit back in the spread and throw the ball 50 times a game and that is not the type of team we are anymore....Great job Rod keep it up

[Jamie]

Smith figured out the strength of the team much faster than Hobbie. How many quick hitch-square out-slip screen-punt series have we had this year?

[smazza]

wow

he is suppose to do this

he didn't get accolades for the penn state game

[smazza]

i predicted a win with same game plan

[Guest AutoMax2]

Who'd a thunk it!!!!

Um, not me. In fact I am going to check myself into a "facility" until I am sure that I have not gone insane