South Florida Bulls Need To Devour This Buccaneer Cupcake

It's time for the South Florida Bulls to politely step up, take hold of their giant cupcake and devour it the way it should be appropriately devoured.

Easily.

When the Bulls host the Charleston Southern Buccaneers Saturday night at Raymond James Stadium, a division 1-AA team, they need to take care of business swiftly and without mercy.

They need to because after Saturday, they'll be leaving the "Cupcake Zone."

This is third of three " warm up" games for the Bulls. You know, a two-foot putt, a layup or even a dunk.

These Buccaneers were slaughtered in Gainesville by Florida then bullied and buried last week by Wofford.

USF has beaten Wofford and Western Kentucky but remains in need to finding its "A" game.

The Bulls have shown weaknesses in both wins. Their defense needs some fine tuning as does the offense and they know it.

"We'd like to come out, set the tone early, score some points early and get our defense going," said quarterback Matt Grothe during this week's preparation. Grothe, with 10,441 yards of total offense, now leads the Big East all-time in that department.

Each game adds to his record. "It says a lot about the people who have played with me because you don't get yards on your own," Grothe said.

Grothe also knows it's time to play and play a complete game, without the turnovers, without the penalties USF can be known for.

"And then," Grothe added, "move on to bigger and better things."

Those bigger and better things start next week in Tallahassee when USF battles FSU for the first time ever.  And you know that game is on the minds of all those who wear green and gold—players and fans.

Coach Jim Leavitt doesn't want his team getting ahead of itself and has the standard "coachspeak" for everyone:

"Charleston Southern is very, very capable, very talented, has size, speed and great athleticism. They had 18 first downs against Florida. We gotta play good football—we need to play better as we get close to the Big East."

Leavitt is right. His team needs to play better.

And it needs to bite down hard on this week's cupcake and simply devour it.