Relax: Last night wasn't as bad as you think...

[South_Florida_Flip]

^^^ Their QB got more 6 tastes of the grass. He was knocked around most of the night.

[Grateful Dad]

I like your perspective, Griggsy (as usual), but Grothe threw behind, WR's had cinder blocks for hands, and as you stated, the special teams are a real concern.  You may have validly explained that these missteps can be attributed to being game one in a brand new season, but that will make no difference when it comes to week two.  I am still concerned because one of our biggest games ever will come seven days after a weak performance.

Some truth to the "playing a vanilla playbook" thing, but bad hands on AJacks and the other receivers and Grothe throwing high and behind them had nothing to do with conservative playcalling.  Still, we have a way of playing down to lesser teams and up to better teams, so we will see.

Again, thanks for the perspective.

[Orlando Bull]

Anyone else think Matt looked a little dissapointed to throw that first TD to Ford instead of running it in, or was that just me? Matt's ready to run and take over football games. Hopefully we'll see the real bulls next week.

[Kyle]

Anyone else think Matt looked a little dissapointed to throw that first TD to Ford instead of running it in, or was that just me? Matt's ready to run and take over football games. Hopefully we'll see the real bulls next week.

He audibled to that play, so I doubt he was all that disappointed.

[USF_Grouper]

I was actually glad to see him a bit more reserved in running.  I think the threat of Matt running the ball is a bigger weapon than Matt actually running the ball.  He did look off last night but so did most of his receivers.  Over the years (I know all 10 of them) USF has always seemed to play to their competition.

My biggest disappointment from last night was not seeing Grant Gregory get any snaps.  If something happens to Matt and Grant has to come in for a few plays against say WV it would be nice if he had played half a game or so already.  I think the biggest advantage to playing these 1-AA games is that it should give our younger players and backups a chance to get some playing time.  The last couple of years our starters have failed to put the game away early enough for that to happen.

[Grateful Dad]

Anyone else think Matt looked a little dissapointed to throw that first TD to Ford instead of running it in, or was that just me? Matt's ready to run and take over football games. Hopefully we'll see the real bulls next week.

He audibled to that play, so I doubt he was all that disappointed.

Yeah, there was no drama there.  Matt will get plenty of glory in his career.  I doubt that he needs to hog it all for himself.  He is a team player.

[Who'sYourData?]

We can back away from the ledge.  I don't think the team was unexcited about playing as much as trying to fit all the new pieces together.  The offensive line was at times missing half of the two deep, and we were rotating four RBs, a different one each series.  Oddly, all of the passing looked pretty vanilla to me.  Given how much we passed last year, I don't think the coaching staff wanted to show that we can run the ball.  None of the pass plays were among our complicated ones.  Also, we played a lot of guys throughout the game with the exception of QB.  Other than not getting Gregory some reps, I bet that Leavitt is happy he has something to complain about.

My only concerns are a banged up O-Line, and receivers that couldn't hold onto the ball

[Griggsy]

I think everyone is pretty much on the same page. In the end it was a win, but we all would have liked to see something that gave us a little more confidence for that oh-so-long drive up to Auburn.

[ProudBull]

We were never in danger of losing that game and that is the most important thing about the game.  THe McNeese St. game we could have lost.  If the recievers just caught the passes that hit them in the hands, then the score would have been much higher.  I know we weren't going to show a lot of the playbook, but I don't see why we couldn't just run it up the middle more.  Why pass so much?

BTW Taylor looked great. I haven't see anyone else mention this.  For playing his first college game he looked really promising.