The History of USF vs. Miami Part II

The final chapter of the six-game series of USF vs. the Hurricanes is this Saturday with the 'Canes slowly returning to national prominence despite the NCAA still hanging over their head, and USF at the nadir of their 17 years of football existence. For Part I, click here.

Nov. 19th, 2011: Miami 6 - USF 3

Rock fight!!

This might have been the ugliest game to watch USF has ever played. Miami ran the ball 40 times, but only gained 57 yards. Both teams combined to generate 565 yards of offense... on 132 plays total. There were 17 punts and two turnovers. The only scoring of the second half came at the gun. It was absolutely brutal to watch, and I can't imagine what it was like to play.

After both teams took turns catapulting stones back and forth to each other for 55 minutes, Miami took over on a touchback with 5:43 to play in a 3-3 contest... and then somehow figured out how to move the ball. Jacory Harris went 7-7 passing on the final drive with no completion going for more than 12 yards to kill off the game. Kicker Jake Wieclaw hit the field goal with two seconds left from 36 yards to win it, and just about everyone involved was rooting for him to end this tragedy.

Nov. 17th, 2012: USF 9 - Miami 40

I will never, ever forgive all parties involved for this game.

Pulling a redshirt off Bobby Eveld in the tenth game of the season when USF's record was 3-6 was an unforgivable sin by Skip Holtz. There was absolutely no way USF had any chance of competing to get to a bowl game. The last three games on the schedule were Miami, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, all of which USF would be a significant underdog in no matter who was starting. It was beyond unfair to Bobby to ask him to play at that point of the season, and it turns out that's a year of eligibility USF could really use next year. For all his shortcomings, Eveld would absolutely be a valuable player to have on the 2014 Bulls.

You know what happens next: With 4 minutes left in the first quarter, Eveld blows out his AC joint on a two yard run and is out for the rest of the game. Matt Floyd comes in to replace him, and goes 20-35 for 175 yards and 2 INT's.

And then there was the end of the first half, which gave us the shortest and most appropriate game recap in the history of our site. On first and goal from the Miami 7 with about 30 seconds left and down 16-0 the Bulls still have all of their timeouts. Demetrius Murray rushes for one yard, BUT THE BULLS DON'T CALL ONE OF THEIR THREE TIMEOUTS ARE YOU ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY KIDDING ME JESUS H CHRIST!!! Floyd tries a fade pattern (shocker there) to Terrence Mitchell, which goes incomplete. Now there's two seconds left, and the .gif that defines the Holtz New Era is born.

This game symbolized the Holtz New Era: A team without anywhere near enough talent goes down to Miami, is beyond poorly coached, and gives up as soon as possible. And I can't blame the players for giving up, because their leadership was so poor. Defensive Coordinator Chris Cosh was beyond atrocious this day, and it was only the second-worst performance of his tenure at USF (see the Syracuse game for his true masterpiece).

Stephen Morris was the star for the 'Canes, going 21-32 for 413 yards and 3 TD's, three UM receivers racked up over 100 yards through the air, and who really cares MOTHER OF GOD WE WERE PAYING $2 MILLION A YEAR FOR THIS SHIT AND WE'RE STILL ON THE HOOK FOR $500,000 A YEAR UNTIL 2017. HOW IS THIS NOT COMPLETE PROFESSIONAL MALFEASANCE ACROSS THE BOARD??

You want to know why we were screaming so loud on the blog? We knew this was coming. We heard from too many people close to the program that it was all about to implode. This is the day the mushroom cloud formed, the Pitt game and the ensuing firing of Holtz was just the fallout.

By all accounts Skip Holtz is a very nice man. He is well-liked personally by basically everyone at USF, and no one is saying he didn't give it his all. But the damage he caused, crystallized by his last game against Miami, shows the amount of damage he's done to USF Football. It will take years to dig out of the harm he caused.

Now you know why we were screaming.