Elon game a disappointment?

[USF Colby]

I thought so. It was the first game I attended as a USF student, and I was amazed to see how undisciplined the team looked against an inferior football team. There were way too many penalties, and way too many fumbles. Amarri Jackson, a senior wide receiver who is in his third year as a starter looked like a backup on a youth JV team. Sure he had 4 receptions, but he dropped 4 others and was not running great routes. Than when I thought it couldn't get any worse for him he went and muffed a punt, not only that but he watched as it rolled on the ground and an Elon guy jumped on it. I mean it's one thing to muff a punt, but to just watch it roll on the ground like that. I bet while that was happening he was thinking "Oh poor me wahh" well instead of doing that he should have jumped on the **** football.

USF was honestly lucky that they were playing a different team from the Southern conference than Michigan was. To make things even worse the score could have been closer, USF forced a couple of red zone turnovers. Imagine if Elon got touchdowns on those 2 possesions or at least kicked field goals?

I will say right now that as bad as Auburn looked against Kansas State I don't think the Bulls have a chance in hell. Auburn is embarassed that they looked so vulnerable on national television against an inferior team and will be looking to rip the Bulls for shreds. The Bulls need to become way more disciplined this week if they want to have a chance because they wont get away with stupid penalties against Auburn. Auburn will make them pay if they rough the punter, or passer.

[jfcohio]

Undisciplined & penalties are a direct reflection on coaching. They'd better step-it-up a bunch of notches to go into the game this weekend and want to try to pull out an upset. Teams are better overall now...all you need to do is use the Appalachian St/Michigan game for that example...but, there are still teams you should DOMINATE if you want to be an elite team. Elon would be one of those teams. This weekend will say a lot about this years USF team.

[USF Colby]

USF was one of the worst looking 1A teams this weekend in my opinion. Virginia and Arizona both looked really bad too but they were playing 1A programs from the Mountain West conference which is the nation's best non-BCS conference. USF was playing a middle of the road 1-AA program and honestly the game should have been over by halftime. Instead the game had just begun at halftime, even sadder is after the Bulls got a 28-6 lead instead of turning it into a rout they nearly let Elon make a comeback. Elon got a touchdown thanks to a USF turnover, then recovered an onside kick. I just don't get it.

[JoeB]

USF was one of the worst looking 1A teams this weekend in my opinion. Virginia and Arizona both looked really bad too but they were playing 1A programs from the Mountain West conference which is the nation's best non-BCS conference. USF was playing a middle of the road 1-AA program and honestly the game should have been over by halftime. Instead the game had just begun at halftime, even sadder is after the Bulls got a 28-6 lead instead of turning it into a rout they nearly let Elon make a comeback. Elon got a touchdown thanks to a USF turnover, then recovered an onside kick. I just don't get it.

I too felt this way walking out of the stadium on Saturday night, but after I watched the tape of the game (two times now), I feel alot better.  Most of our mistakes were mental errors (bonehead penalties, dropped passes), not to mention our O Line was working with a skeleton crew of sorts.  These things can be corrected.  The final score was 28-13, but could have just as easily been 45-3.  If you haven't watched a tape of the game, view it and it should change your opinion somewhat.

[outrunner]

recap from all these topics

1) first game of the season, breaking off the rust

2) very conservative gameplan, not showing Auburn too much

Was it pretty? No

Was there mistakes? Yes

Did we win? Yes

Am I worried? No

Will we be ready? Only time will tell.

I BULL-IEVE

DO U?

[USF Colby]

recap from all these topics

1) first game of the season, breaking off the rust

2) very conservative gameplan, not showing Auburn too much

Was it pretty? No

Was there mistakes? Yes

Did we win? Yes

Am I worried? No

Will we be ready? Only time will tell.

I BULL-IEVE

DO U?

I noticed that the gameplan was rather conservative but thats the problem, they were being conservative and still making mistakes. The fact that USF was throwing short to intermediate routes, and running the ball should have eliminated mistakes but despite that there were still countless mistakes. It was Elon's first game too, Elon had to shake off the rust and against probably the best team they'll face all year no less yet they were able to do it and played a tough game. Add in the fact that Elon is one of the weaker teams in their conference (albeit a good 1-AA conference) and I can't come out of this game without feeling worried.

I didn't record the game because I honestly did not know it was on TV. I heard later from my dad that catch 47 was showing it but I just assumed it was on some pay-per-view thing like all the Gators and Seminoles games against ****** teams are so therefore I don't have the opportunity to view it again. I almost wish I could right now because maybe i'd feel better.

[BullyPulpit]

You also have to look at the way the teams/players view these games. This was Elon's "Bowl Game". It was their chance to go out with the big boys and show they could compete. This was USF's tune-up game. We ran some diagnostics, found out where some of the glitches/bugs were, and are prepared to remedy the problems this week. The only time there was any real sense of urgency out there was after halftime, where we promptly went up 21-3. The game was never in doubt. My biggest concern going into the Auburn game is with the O-Line and special teams. I just think our offense is going to be limited, with our TE's and RB's forced to help protect. Only time will tell.

[mutt]

Crazy Crazy Crazy...     I pray that CJL gave all of our players sleeping pills an hour before the game, that's the only explaination I could think of...  Man I can't tell ya how pissed I was Saturday, and I'm crossing my fingers that we don't bring that kind of game to auburn. Granted, they looked like poo poo as well, but we really need to step it up a bit ALOT.

[usf97]

I'm starting to learn to not read too much into each individual game. I mean take last year as an example. How did you feel about our team in the 3rd quarter of the McNeese State game, the 4th qtr of the the FIU game, at the end of the Kansas, Cincinnati or Louisville games? Yet how happy were you about this team after West Virginia, Pittsburgh or the dominating performance against ECU in the Bowl? Overall, last year was arguably our best team ever, yet there were times they drove me to drink.

[VeryBullish]

I think a lot of people have failed to read between the lines here. It is not obvious that our offense was scaled down to about 20 plays on offense and defense? Grothe threw a lot of underneath routes. HOW MANY TIMES DID WE BLITZ ON DEFENSE? Not one single time. George Selvie had 4 sacks from just bull rushing and stunting elon's o-line. Come on people. This game was "close" because we had a different agenda. We called C. Mitchell's and TJ's number for a reverse. When we all know how reverses have been ran in the past. How much play action did we do after we establish the run? We got J Taylor some game action. Introduced a new formation. Worked on some motion blah blah blah. If we wanted to run the score up we could have easily handed the ball to Ford 20x. I'm sure he would have destroyed a couple of USF rushing records.....6 carries for 83 yards. We weren't even playing with urgency out there. Other than that, my only issues were the dropped balls, Amarri dancing a lil too much instead of making a move and hitting the hole, and cedric Hill's blocking on some plays. He doesn't seal his man.

One more thing; please consider the scaled-down game film Auburn has to look at to game-plan against us. They have practically nothing. Would you willingly give up information to your opponent if you knew they could use it against you? I'm sure the answer is no. So why would you expect us to blow elon out of the water and show our playing hand? And another thing, if any of you watched that Auburn you have picked up on how overly-aggressive their d is. I can't count how many times they blitz their linebackers while their secondary stayed in zone coverage. Hmmm those short underneath routes that we worked on this past week will yield big gains if our receivers catch the balls.

Elon scored 6 points on our first team defense. I saw what I wanted to see. I may not be satisfied with the product from the elon game, but I exactly know what we're doing. If you think for a second that CJL is that dumb to show his hand in a statement game, you haven't followed USF football that well. CJL knows how to play the game. Just ask Urban Meyer. Meyer called him up after the Bowling Green vs USF game to ask how'd he beat him. Leavitt refused to tell him.

I'm not worried the least bit.