South Florida Bulls Still Good Enough for the Big East

Now that you've had time to let it all sink in, consider these thoughts from the 38-14 thrashing that Florida administered to a hopeful South Florida team on Saturday:

The South Florida Bulls were about half as good as the University of Florida.

For one half of a college football game, they were actually better, at least they played better.

USF had played hard and executed its offense marvelously, played great defense to build a 7-0 lead over those always-heralded Gators.

But then IT began.

B.J. Daniels, who was USF's best player for a large part of the game, was also its worst player for a larger part of the game. The first "oh-no" moment came near the end of the first half when Daniels tried to force a screen pass attempt into the midst of Gator defenders.

Quickly, what should have been a 7-0 USF halftime lead was a 7-7 halftime lead.

The adjustments by the Florida defense would be simple—stop Daniels. Pressure Daniels and this team from down the road would fold, no doubt.

Daniels was indeed pressured, pressured and pressured some more. He showed that he has perhaps contracted the disease from former USF quarterback Matt Grothe—the dreaded poor decision-making under fire.

When all was said and done, Daniels would complete five passes to his own players and four to the Gators.

Urban Meyer was most complimentary of B.J., called him "an SEC quarterback." Now, Urb didn't say which SEC school he might play for, but perhaps he had in mind Vandy or Mississippi State or one of those.

So many truths became self-evident during this 60 minutes of heat and toil on the floor of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

First, USF is about half as good as Florida.

Second, Florida has about twice the talent that USF has. It has quality players—a lot of them. It shows.

Third, if you didn't believe Jeff Demps could really hurt USF, you were in denial.

Fourth, Florida has more than twice the fanbase that USF has. USF puts 40,000 in the stands, Florida packs in more than 90,000. Chalk that one up to time and tradition.

USF is certainly not good enough to be in the SEC.

USF is good enough to contend this season in the Big East.

Florida is better than a lot of SEC schools; they are not better than Alabama.

USF won't see a better team than Florida on its schedule for the rest of the season. That means, if and that's a mighty big "if" they can eliminate mistakes, they can perhaps contend with the likes of Pitt, Cincinnati and West Virginia.

Finally, the old saying that "the eye in the sky does not lie" holds very true when USF opponents take a look at this video from the Florida game.

Defensive coordinators will take a look at Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, aka B.J. Daniels and tell their charges, "hey, if we stop this guy, USF will fold. He can hurt us with his feet but he can't do anything with his arm if we pressure him."

And Skip Holtz will have to do something about that.