South Florida Comes Away With a Centennial Win Against Rutgers

Very few Sport’s fans today can say that they have witnessed a team’s centennial win. For Skip Holtz’s and the South Florida Bulls, that victory came over Schiano’s Rutgers on Wednesday night in what could be the closest Big East game of the season.  Rutgers has never been kind to the Bulls, defeating the Bulls four of the five games; and Wednesday night’s game went down to the wire.

Moise Plancher, the six-year senior and only player on the team to have seen every game against Rutgers, held the back for the Bulls and rushed 135 yards to lead the Bulls to victory over Rutgers. The victory was all the sweeter for the Bulls with Lou Holtz in attendance, even taking the time to take photographs for fans.  After the Bulls victory, the son of the legendary Lou, Skip Holtz, made his way to the sideline with the players for a feel good moment in which the players began to sing the alma mater.

Rather than focus on the negativity of the game and not take away from a monumental program that has risen as fast as the program began, I decided to analyze the plays from the game that made a detrimental difference in the game.

1) Perhaps what will be the most replayed highlight from the game, on a long 3rd-and-21, Chas Dodd passed to Kordell Young but was sacked by Keith McCaskill for a South Florida safety.  I found it hard to call this simply the best play of that drive, mostly because of the fact that 15 yards were lost in total for Rutgers’s possession, with that play only accounting for a loss of four yards.

2) Usually a fumble recovery is often heartfelt with chastising about why the ball hit the ground in the first place, however when that fumble recovery is picked up for a touchdown, give credit where credit is due. For this play, I commend Jacob Sims for acting fast and retaining ball possession. On a side note, as that play developed, I was afraid that a illegal forward pass would be called similar to a play against Rutgers that would eventually knock a once No. 2 ranked USF off the map (I still stand by the fact that in 2007, it was not an illegal forward pass).

3) When the announcement was first made that Skip Holtz, a coach notable for his special teams abilities, was selected as a candidate for USF’s open coaching position, a few South Florida fans sighed relief. There is no hiding the fact that USF has suffered losses and unnecessary close games by the kicker's leg. However, Wednesday night became a time to forget history, the countless hauntings of Wednesday nights, the unnecessary domination by Rutgers and the missed field goal kicks. On Wednesday night, Maikon Bonani kicked a 47-yard field goal rather than risk going for it on 4th-and-2. While sitting in the student section, I am almost certain everyone within my parameter was certain this was going to be missed. Bonani came through when he was needed and for that I thank him.

4) The decision was hard as to whether to place this touchdown pass as No. 4 or No. 5 on the list. However with the Bulls being down, the pressure was on to maintain composure and score once more. That is why the No. 4 most important play of the game goes to BJ Daniels' six-yard touchdown pass to Dontavia Bogan.

5) The final most important play of the game was BJ Daniels' four-yard pass to Evan Landi to score the first touchdown for the bulls. Scoring first on the opening drive is always a great way to being a game.

The victory at Tampa tonight was an extraordinary win for the South Florida Bulls and one that will go down in the books as an important step in determining what level South Florida should be in under the Skip Holtz era.

Congratulations to Skip and company, BJ and crew and to South Florida fans worldwide.