Teddy Bridgewater said after the Cardinals heartbreaking loss to UCF last Friday “This is college football. Anything can happen. We’ll keep our heads up.” “You can’t live in a loss. One loss doesn’t ruin the whole season.” He is right and the Cards will have to shake off that loss quick as they prepare to meet the University of South Florida Bulls on Saturday at high noon on ESPN2. This rivalry has added some sparks in recent years and now it looks like both could possibly be battling it out for the conference title this season. Both of these schools also have the best young coaches in college football with Charlie Strong and Willie Taggart. Coach Taggart has brought a blue collar type football mentality to South Florida and with the talent on that roster they will be a tough win on their home field. They will also be looking at this game as their chance to make history. They are 2-0 in conference play for the first time since 2003 and have an opportunity to do something no other USF team has done since the program started playing football, get to 3-0 in league play. The USF and Louisville series is tied at 5-5 with Louisville winning the last two games including a 27-25 victory last year in Papa Johns Stadium.
Charlie Strong Previews USF
The Bulls have had to break in new quarterbacks and many unknown skill players for them to share the ball with as they have tried to move forward from the worst season in the program’s 16 year history. The quarterback situation at USF has been one of the hotter topics surrounding the Bulls this season. The Bulls return two veteran quarterbacks this year with senior Bobby Eveld and sophomore Matt Floyd, while adding Penn State transfer Steven Bench. Matt Floyd lost USF’s starting quarterback job during the season opener, and Bobby Eveld was replaced by Bench in the first quarter against FAU. Bench went out with a leg injury against Cincy.
Taggart has now made Senior quarterback Bobby Eveld his main priority again and has said that he will continue to be his guy going forward. Eveld is a 6-5 gunslinger who takes care of the ball and has 433 yards with two touchdowns on the season. Running back Marcus Shaw had been the focus of this unproven offense out of the gate but also went out in the Cincy game with a leg injury. He has 552 yards this season with two touchdowns. If he can’t go against the Cards on Saturday it will be Michael Pierre who gets the call. He has just 116 yards on the season with no touchdowns. Andre Davis is the top returning wideout for the Bulls and he has 270 yards with one touchdown. The entire offensive line saw action at times last year and are a experienced group so they should provide reliable protection up front for the skill players. Louisville’s defense struggled last Friday and had their worst outing of the season. They should be able to get things going again Saturday against this USF offense as it is a very inconsistent and thin group.
“We understand there is a challenge with the University of Louisville coming in here. They’re a really talented football team in every aspect,” Taggart said Tuesday.
The USF defense has made a huge leap over the past couple of weeks and it can be contributed to Coach Taggart simplifying the defensive game plan. It has allowed the group to play loose and to make plays. The Bulls’ defense has scored a touchdown off a turnover in three straight games, while ranking 17th in the FBS in fumble recoveries (7) and 37th in the nation in total turnovers (13). Turnovers really hurt the Cardinals offense last Friday night and they will have to protect the ball against this USF group. They play really fast and fly all over the field. Teddy and company will be hungry to get back in the win column Saturday and I look for this to be a very good battle between these units.
“UCF played amazing defense,” USF defensive tackle Todd Chandler said. “They didn’t quit when Louisville punched them in the mouth. They didn’t blink an eye. They just kept coming back fighting and I know that’s what South Florida is going to do. We’re not going to blink.”
A few weeks ago this looked like a game on the schedule that wouldn’t create any major problems for the Cardinals. But after the loss Friday night and the fact that USF has won their first two conference games has made this one very interesting. Will the Cardinals be able to move past the loss and not have it linger? And can USF use their momentum to pull off the upset? I do think the Cards will get it rolling again and I don’t think this USF group can generate enough offense to keep up. It won’t be as easy as I would have predicted weeks ago.
The Beak Prediction:
Louisville 31 USF 10