Time to chime in..

[CCCballboy]

Having graduated from USF in 2006, and being a huge USF fan, I guess its time to chime in.

I spend every Friday night traveling the state to watch HS football, and let me tell you first hand, how DIFFICULT it is to go undefeated.  Back when USF beat WVU, I knew somewhere along the line we were going to trip up, and well, now I know.

So, now that we tripped up and a national championship is no longer in reach, its time to look at what we are playing for.

At the start of the season, we all wanted a Big East championship and to play in a BCS bowl, that goal is still in front of us with our most (statistically speakin) difficult games at home.

Coaching didn't lose us the game. So, what lost us the game? Simple, sacks.  Holy smokes!  At CCC if a QB got sacked 7 times, you better bet the emergency QB would be in the game, or there would be serious tweaking to the O-line during a game winning drive!  Grothe really needs to learn to throw the ball away, it was never more glaring when a 2 man rush got to him.  That said, this loss isn't really on Grothe either. He played his heart out, and it was apparent that Rutgers had a hard time stopping him "most" of the night.

Refs?  Naw, wasn't their fault.  If the play where it was fumbled forward twice stood, that would of been the death blow to USF anyway,  we would of never heard the end of it. Granted, I do think it was a legit touchdown taken off the board.

Special teams? Kinda hard to stop Rutgers when they get the ball on the 50 everytime because our guys are late hitting and doing stupid things. But, no, ST's did enough good things last night from this being the reason we lost.

So, who do we blame for this loss if it wasn't the coaches/Grothe or the Refs? Rutgers..blame them for this loss, they came out playing very well, made very few mistakes (outside of the kicking game) and IMHO deserved to win.

So, where do we go from here? Well, to between 15-20, I don't think USF drops out of the top 20. I also happen to believe that a top 10 ranking is still attainable with everybody ahead of USF getting into the meat of their schedule.

Take solace in the fact that Louisville also went up to Rutgers and lost, yet still won the conference.

[WVstatechamp1990]

Nice write up.

Still though, you are givng these Bulls false hopes.  USF has a one trick pony offense and last night it through a shoe!  The counter to your offense was broadcast to the nation in High Definition "mirror spy".  Every time Rutgers implemented that "D", Grothe was stiffled and USF went 3 and out.

Expect to see it 5 more times.

[MarketingGuy]

Nice post CCC..

I'll add to it a bit: Missed tackles. HOW MANY missed tackles could you count during this game? Sometimes 2-3 or 4 missed tackles on a play. That's fundamentals guys.. you can't throw your shoulder at someone. Put your arms out and rock his world! These missed tackles cost at least a touch down..

[BleedGoldAndGreen]

Nice write up.

Still though, you are givng these Bulls false hopes.  USF has a one trick pony offense and last night it through a shoe!  The counter to your offense was broadcast to the nation in High Definition "mirror spy".  Every time Rutgers implemented that "D", Grothe was stiffled and USF went 3 and out.

Expect to see it 5 more times.

Do it til it doesn't work.  Last night it didn't work for the first time this season.  Make changes, move on.

Oh yeah, the score was still 21-13.

[USF Colby]

I agree with your entire writeup, our goals are still in front of us and with people jumping off the bandwagon hopefully it will be easier to get tickets to a BCS bowl.

Plus a possible positive to that loss is lets face it, if we went undefeated but then a 1 loss LSU made it in over us (and Ohio State remained undefeated, or Boston College jumped us after beating Va Tech and stayed there) how good would have that felt? I honestly think that would have felt worse than choking on the road against Rutgers, but still winning our and winning the first conference championship and going to the first BCS bowl in school history.

Our offensive line finally showed itself to be a huge weakness, I said against Auburn and West Virginia that if we lost the O-Line would be largely to blame. Well against Rutgers the weakness was exposed, they blitzed 6 and the line couldn't stop it and then they would leave 5 in coverage. The o-line needs to play better, weren't a couple of the starters out?

[USF Colby]

Nice write up.

Still though, you are givng these Bulls false hopes.  USF has a one trick pony offense and last night it through a shoe!  The counter to your offense was broadcast to the nation in High Definition "mirror spy".  Every time Rutgers implemented that "D", Grothe was stiffled and USF went 3 and out.

Expect to see it 5 more times.

Your such an idiot dude, just give it a rest. I doubt any of us are going to go to a Rutgers board and predict them to lose every week the rest of the season and then try to taunt them when they do actually lose. I'm probably the most likely candidate to do something like that because i'm a bit of an unorthodox fan, but they beat us fair and sqaure so i'm not going to do that ****.

Besides, we're still ahead of you guys in the Big East so it's all good. As long as we win out all of this is irrelevant.

[CCCballboy]

WVstatechamp1990-

You bring up a great point about the spy.  True story,  WVU's Jock Sanders and Andrew Harris.  When CCC played SPC a few years ago in the playoffs, CCC used a spy on then QB Billy Tapp at SPC.  It worked for a few drives, then came the trickeration.

SPC put their QB Tapp at the slot position and moved Jock Sanders to QB, CCC kept the spy on Jock Sanders because we knew they had some plays for him at QB, but the starting QB Tapp was out on the wing.  SPC went to a double pass offense, caught CCC off guard because it took the spy 110% out of the equation.  Just when we figured it out, they would double pass to Tapp, when the spy came over to Tapp, he would throw it BACK to Sanders who would take off for a 15-20 yard gain.

Now, I'm not saying thats what USF should do, thats HS football, obviously this is college, but it reminded me of that story from a few years back.

Overall, USF will be fine. One loss shouldn't ruin an otherwise special season at USF.

[kastofsna]

they rushed the passer on every play. if Grothe isn't in there, then the QB is sacked 12 times. Schiano knew our running game was NO threat at all, so they just went all out on every play. out coached. Grothe did about the best he could, and that resulted in a ton of sacks.

outplayed and outcoached in every. phase. of. the. game.

[ITBULL]

Having graduated from USF in 2006, and being a huge USF fan, I guess its time to chime in.

I spend every Friday night traveling the state to watch HS football, and let me tell you first hand, how DIFFICULT it is to go undefeated.  Back when USF beat WVU, I knew somewhere along the line we were going to trip up, and well, now I know.

So, now that we tripped up and a national championship is no longer in reach, its time to look at what we are playing for.

At the start of the season, we all wanted a Big East championship and to play in a BCS bowl, that goal is still in front of us with our most (statistically speakin) difficult games at home.

Coaching didn't lose us the game. So, what lost us the game? Simple, sacks.  Holy smokes!  At CCC if a QB got sacked 7 times, you better bet the emergency QB would be in the game, or there would be serious tweaking to the O-line during a game winning drive!  Grothe really needs to learn to throw the ball away, it was never more glaring when a 2 man rush got to him.  That said, this loss isn't really on Grothe either. He played his heart out, and it was apparent that Rutgers had a hard time stopping him "most" of the night.

Refs?  Naw, wasn't their fault.  If the play where it was fumbled forward twice stood, that would of been the death blow to USF anyway,  we would of never heard the end of it. Granted, I do think it was a legit touchdown taken off the board.

Special teams? Kinda hard to stop Rutgers when they get the ball on the 50 everytime because our guys are late hitting and doing stupid things. But, no, ST's did enough good things last night from this being the reason we lost.

So, who do we blame for this loss if it wasn't the coaches/Grothe or the Refs? Rutgers..blame them for this loss, they came out playing very well, made very few mistakes (outside of the kicking game) and IMHO deserved to win.

So, where do we go from here? Well, to between 15-20, I don't think USF drops out of the top 20. I also happen to believe that a top 10 ranking is still attainable with everybody ahead of USF getting into the meat of their schedule.

Take solace in the fact that Louisville also went up to Rutgers and lost, yet still won the conference.

Great Post!!  Add to what everyone else said too many mis-tackles, penalties, not converting on 3rd down, lack of running game, and dropped passes.

[bullsmania]

Nice post CCC..

I'll add to it a bit: Missed tackles. HOW MANY missed tackles could you count during this game? Sometimes 2-3 or 4 missed tackles on a play. That's fundamentals guys.. you can't throw your shoulder at someone. Put your arms out and rock his world! These missed tackles cost at least a touch down..

Agree.  I remember seeing this at FAU also and was hoping I would never see it again this year.  You cannot just hit Rice or most RB's in this league and think they will go down.