By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA – The opponent might be someone you haven’t heard much about, and probably you couldn’t name two of their players if your mortgage check depended on it. If history has taught us nothing else, though, you have to look beyond the name, because you can never be sure about anything in the opening game of the college football season.
So it was Saturday night at RayJay, when the University of South Florida met Wofford, a scrappy Division I-AA team from Spartanburg, S.C. Chances are you hadn’t heard much about the Terriers before this night, and it’s unlikely they’ll pass USF’s way again, but for the better part of the first half they were exactly what Bulls coach Jim Leavitt feared they would be.
They were fearless, unorthodox and more than a little game. They also came to town for more than just the $300,000 guarantee they’d receive for playing the lamb to the slaughter.
They had the Bulls back on their heels a bit, and no one was quite sure when USF would do what superior teams are supposed to. The answer came in a nine-point blitz in the final 36 seconds of the first half that enabled the Bulls to break a tie game and eventually cruise to a comfortable 40-7 victory.
I’m not sure what conclusions we can draw from all this, since the result ended up being what everyone basically expected – although, like we said, you can never be sure when it’s opening night. Two years ago, USF struggled to put away Elon 28-13 in the first game. The year before that, the Bulls led mighty McNeese State by only four points in the fourth quarter before pulling away for a 41-10 win.
Compared to those, this was cake.
In a departure from the norm, Leavitt focused mostly on his team and not the opponent in the weeks leading up to the game.
“I was nervous about it,” he said. “We didn’t really get to Wofford until game week.”
The Bulls gave up 177 yards on the ground, but Wofford runs a funky option attack and it took the Terriers 50 carries to run up that number. USF won’t see anything like that the rest of the season, though. Take what comfort you will from that. More – TBO.com
