No. 18 USF improves to 5-0 with blowout
Bulls win their school-record 10th consecutive game.
No. 18 South Florida’s typically stout defense sprung more than a few leaks against East Carolina.
So the Bulls reverted to what worked pretty well under Willie Taggart last year — they outscored the Pirates.
Quinton Flowers threw for two touchdowns and ran for another, and USF extended its school-record winning streak to 10 by routing East Carolina 61-31 on Saturday in Greenville, N.C.
“We just kept telling each other we have to score,” Flowers said. “Just continue scoring, stay within the offense, and we’ll continue scoring. And that’s what we did — we just kept scoring every chance we got, every possession, and we put up a lot of points.”
It was the Bulls’ highest-scoring game since they hung 65 on Cincinnati two years ago, and it was anything but a one-man show.
D’Ernest Johnson rushed for 111 yards and two touchdowns, receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling took an end-around 75 yards for a touchdown and caught a 4-yard scoring pass from Flowers, and Auggie Sanchez returned an interception 43 yards for a TD.
The Bulls (5-0, 2-0 American) overcame some rare struggles on defense and remained perfect under firstyear coach Charlie Strong by scoring on 10 of the 12 possessions with the starting offense. USF outscored the Pirates 30-7 in the second half.
“The key thing, we had to stop the quarterback run,” Strong said. “We’d call a defense, and then we weren’t getting the spill on the edge, and then the ball was getting downhill. Any time the quarterback’s running, you have to stop the downhill run . ... Made the adjustment at halftime, and were able to stop it.”
Flowers, the American’s offensive player of the year in 2016, ran 16 yards for a touchdown and hit Tyre McCants for a 14-yard score. Darius Tice also had a 1-yard TD run for South Florida.
Thomas Sirk had two touchdown passes and two scoring runs to keep the Pirates (1-4, 1-1) in it for a while. He hit Davon Grayson for a 31-yard TD and Stephen Baggett with a jump pass for a 2-yard TD on the final play of the first half.
Three of their first five opponents are in this week’s Top 25 — No. 12 Virginia Tech, No. 23 West Virginia and these Bulls — and they’ve beaten ECU by a combined 181-68.
“What you saw today is that we have a long way to go to get to the top of the conference,” ECU coach Scottie Montgomery said.
The defense had been the trademark of USF under Strong, but this score-atwill showing looked more like something Taggart’s team might have pulled off last year. A week after the Bulls held Temple to 85 total yards, that unit showed a few cracks, allowing season highs in points and total yards (414) to an ECU team that, for all its faults, can move the ball.
The Bulls didn’t do anything to tarnish their highest national ranking since the 2011 team maxed out at No. 16. If they move up three spots — not an entirely unreasonable proposition — they’ll have their best ranking since the 2008 team was ranked 10th.
The Bulls have a week off before welcoming Cincinnati on Oct. 14.
Bethune-Cookman 24, Savannah State 12: Former Village Academy standout Larry Brihm Jr. rushed for a touchdown, helping the Wildcats (2-3, 1-1 MEAC) over the Tigers (0-4, 0-2) in Daytona Beach.
Jamaruz Thompkins rushed for 126 yards on just 14 carries and scored a touchdown for Bethune.