ZIER: After battering by BYU, USF looks to fix its problems against Howard
For South Florida, this is a get-well game. Something this team needs after the way it was battered, beaten up and left for dead by Brigham Young.
Although USF Coach Jeff Scott is fighting fiercely to keep his team focused on Howard, an FCS team that comes to town Saturday, this is a mismatch of major proportions.
The FCS is college football's version of Triple-A baseball. It came of age in 2007, when Appalachian State, then an FCS team, rocked the football world by going to Ann Arbor and beating Michigan, ranked fifth nationally at the time, 34-32. Some say that's the biggest upset in the history of college football. Maybe, maybe not. But it did set the stage for more of these games, where the big boys give the little schools a bunch of money to come play so they can tune up against an inferior opponent.
It doesn't always work. Case in point, last week the FCS's Delaware smacked Navy. So in theory at least, Howard has a shot against USF, and Scott would very much like his team to believe that.
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"They're a much improved football team this year," Scott said. "They're more athletic, playing faster. We're gonna have to play well. Bottom line, every game on our schedule, if we don't play well, we're not guaranteed a win."
If this was anybody but Howard, maybe you could buy into that a little. But Howard? This is not App State, or Delaware, or anything close to it. This is a team that is 0-2 so far against two FCS opponents, one of which is picked to finish 13th in a 13-team conference. The truth is that USF should beat Howard every bit as badly as BYU beat the Bulls. It's a chance to iron out the kinks before going to Louisville, to get the missteps and mistakes corrected, to regain confidence in the plan.
But going forward, this will tell us very little about where USF is as a team. So far, you have to be a bit uneasy. After losing to Brigham Young, Scott sounded very much like he did a year ago when the Bulls opened with a 45-0 loss at North Carolina State. The post-game comments were the same, almost interchangeable. This team is supposed to be better than that one, just like the 2021 team was supposed to be better than 2020.
And it may be, it has to be. After going 2-7 in 2020, Baylor jumped to 12-2 with a Big 12 championship and a Sugar Bowl win over Ole Miss. Scott has pointed that out to his players, has tried to create an atmosphere where the team believes it is better than its record, because so far, the record doesn't validate that.
"We played poorly, but that doesn't mean we're a poor football team," Scott said. "It's all about us. We've got to go out and correct the mistakes and really get back to being the team we can be. The only thing Saturday proved was we're not ready to beat a top 25 team.
"But at the end of the day, our entire season is ahead of us," Scott said. "We're not going to be defined by our first game. If we had won, we were not going to be defined by that, either."
Scott has been consistent in saying this team has improved in ways that haven't shown up on the scoreboard. In the end though, you're only as good as the scoreboard says you are.
PAT'S AAC PICKS: USF over Howard - It's not worth commenting on. UCF over Louisville - This game will tell us a lot about both teams. The rest: Temple over Lafayette, Cincinnati over Kennesaw St., Memphis over Navy, Houston over Texas Tech, East Carolina over Old Dominion, SMU over Lamar, Tulane over Alcorn St., Tulsa over Northern Illinois. Last week, 8-3. For the season, 8-3, .727.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: USF coach insists the team won't be defined by opening loss to BYU
