Well, there's still one thing USF football fans can rely on. If the game's on Friday, USF is pretty much money in the bank. The Bulls have won Friday games in each of the last five seasons (6-0 overall), and this was the easiest one of the bunch. They never trailed in the game, and at least on offense they looked like the team that ran up video game numbers on some of their non-conference opponents.
You have to give a lot of credit to the offensive line for this win. It was completely unlike last season against Syracuse. USF ran for 234 yards. Daniels was only sacked once, and he didn't face a whole lot of pressure (although he didn't have that many plays where he had to wait for receivers to pop open). In the fourth quarter when the Bulls were trying to put the game away, it was the running game that helped finish the job -- USF ran for 107 yards combined on their last two drives, which both went for touchdowns.
And B.J. Daniels continues to direct the running game very well. He ended up carrying the ball more than usual last night, either because that's what the Orange defense was giving him, or by design without Darrell Scott in the lineup. B.J. ran for 117 yards and totaled 371 yards of total offense by himself, meaning he outgained the entire Syracuse team until their last garbage-time drive. I think it's also time to start keeping tabs on his progress towards two of Matt Grothe's total offense records -- the season record (3,542 yards in 2007) and the career record (10,875 yards, also the Big East career record). Daniels is up to 2,838 yards this season and 7,625 yards for his career. Barring injury or some kind of mental implosion, he'll have a strong chance to break both records.
More later, because Rod Gilmore was in rare form tonight and someone has to write down all the crazy stuff he said. But for now, nice to be back in the win column. Only one win in their last three games (all at home) gets USF bowl-eligible for the seventh year in a row. The first chance is against Miami next Saturday, time TBD.