As if USF's refusal to throw the ball more against UConn wasn't bad enough, you're not going to believe some of the reasons that Skip Holtz, Todd Fitch, and B.J. Daniels gave reporters after the game for why they didn't throw the ball more. These are all from Greg Auman's latest blog post:
Skip Holtz:
"You just don't have the humidity up here in the air. B.J. was having a hard time holding onto the ball, complaining about it being really slick," coach Skip Holtz said after his team passed for only 164 yards. "One ball went out of the back. You could see he kept coming over to the sidelines, spraying his hands with water to try to keep them moist so he could grip the ball. He just missed a couple of balls."
Your trainers didn't have any moisturizer or lotion with them? You couldn't go to a CVS or something and get some? I have dry skin and Texas has much less humidity than Connecticut. One dollop of Curel rubbed into my hands and I'm fine for the rest of the day. Water doesn't help.
And the humidity ranged between 41% and 55% during the game, according to a weather station near Rentschler Field. Not as humid as Florida, but hardly desert-like.
B.J. Daniels:
"It's cold. The ball's a little bit harder, your hands a little rougher," he said. "Just trying to keep my hands warm in the second half, and it definitely helped."
Kickoff temperature: 62 degrees according to the same station. That's not even close to cold. And it was colder than that during the bowl game last year when Daniels played really well. Lame, soft excuse.
Todd Fitch:
"The wind was part of the deal, the weather conditions," Fitch said. "Early in the game, we had to figure out what we could or couldn't throw. We hit some third downs, but we didn't make the plays we needed to in the passing game. ... We didn't make the plays obviously to keep drives alive."
YOU THREW EIGHT PASSES IN THE FIRST HALF. And several of those were quick screens that are basically running plays. How can you claim you had to figure out what you could throw when you didn't really try? Oh, and once you figured out what you could throw on that first drive in the third quarter, you didn't come back to any of it. Plus Daniels has a cannon for an arm, I'm fairly sure he can cut through a stiff breeze on medium-length passes.
Pathetic.