South Florida always a tough out for WVU

[Brad]

October 10, 2010

South Florida always a tough out for WVU

By Dave Hickman

MORGANTOWN - West Virginia's first Big East test of the season, at least on the surface, appears not to be quite as daunting as once it appeared. South Florida, which comes to Morgantown Thursday night, is fresh off an ugly 13-9 loss at home to a Syracuse team that earned only its fifth league win in the last six seasons.

Here's the problem with perception, though, as it relates to the WVU-USF series: Things generally don't play out the way they're supposed to.

The Mountaineers seldom go into games against the Bulls as anything but the favorite. Yet South Florida has won three of the five games between the teams.

"They're a pretty good football team. They've whipped us three of the last four games if I'm not mistaken,'' West Virginia coach Bill Stewart correctly recalled. "I know we had a pretty fine quarterback around here named Patrick White and we lost with him.''

Indeed, save for the first game between the teams back in 2005, South Florida has been without question the toughest out on the West Virginia schedule over that period. Even in that first season, it took a couple of long runs by White to break open an otherwise close game before the Mountaineers won 28-13 in Tampa.

But since then:

# In 2006, White was hobbled by a bad ankle that would keep him out of the following week's season finale against Rutgers - the Jarrett Brown-fueled three-overtime win - and West Virginia lost at home 24-19.

# In 2007, the Mountaineers were unbeaten and ranked No. 5 in the country and USF knocked White out again and dominated thanks to six WVU turnovers. The Bulls led 21-6 before winning 21-13 in Tampa.

# In 2008, despite a blanket of snow and the White Out honoring White's last home game, the warm-weather Bulls had the ball inside the WVU 20 at the end of the game but couldn't score and lost 13-7.

# Last year in Tampa, on a Thursday the night before Halloween, West Virginia imploded, allowing rookie starting quarterback B.J. Daniels to pass for three touchdowns and run for 104 yards in a 30-19 loss.

In every one of those games the Mountaineers were favored and struggled. West Virginia (4-1, 0-0 Big East), freshly reinstated to the Top 25 at No. 25, will be favored again Thursday night, but if the past is any lesson it will be anything but an easy game.

So why does South Florida play West Virginia so well?

"You can call it a whole combination of things,'' Stewart said. "They've got talent, they've got coaching. They're pretty good. They've got great athleticism. They've got people that many people would like to have and they've won a lot of football games.

"Believe me, South Florida is good. If people think they're not good, they don't have a clue. Florida State thought that last year down in Tallahassee if I remember right.''

Indeed, the Bulls beat the Seminoles 17-7, even though Daniels was in his first start after Matt Grothe blew out a knee shortly after breaking White's Big East record for career total yards.

There is, however, one big difference between this USF team and the ones that have given West Virginia so much trouble. Jim Leavitt, the only coach in the program's history, was fired last January and replaced by Skip Holtz.

But Holtz hasn't exactly been a pushover for the Mountaineers, either. West Virginia was 4-1 against Holtz when he was at East Carolina between 2005 and 2009, but only one of those games was a blowout.

South Florida is 3-2 so far this season, having lost 38-14 at Florida in addition to the loss at home against Syracuse, which over the past five seasons has gone 0-7, 1-6, 1-6, 1-6 and 1-6 in league play. The Bulls' wins were against Stony Brook, Western Kentucky and Florida Atlantic, not exactly a murderer's row.

South Florida is next-to-last in the Big East in total offense and No. 103 in the country in passing offense, but is No. 12 in the nation in pass defense and No. 18 in total defense.

"They're getting it down,'' Stewart said of the transition from Leavitt to Holtz. "They probably didn't play up to what they would have liked to have done Saturday, but let's give Syracuse credit. Syracuse had a lot to say in that.''

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