Haiku and Initial Postgame Thoughts: USF 31, Stony Brook 17

The only nice thing
you can say about that is
it wasn’t a loss.

Collin may be telling everyone to R-E-L-A-X, but I very much disagree. Stony Brook is not a well-regarded FCS team, and that was a terrible effort from USF today, at least on offense. The blocking was bad, Flowers was bad (by his standards), the runners were bad, and the play-calling was pretty bad as well. It wouldn’t be a surprise if USF fell in the rankings on Tuesday after a brief scare against San Jose State, followed by this game.

At least USF didn’t lose. That would have been a fiasco. This is merely a problem.

• Quinton Flowers finished 19 for 32 for 186 yards and two TDs. He threw one interception, was sacked twice, made a number of bad throws, and struggled with his reads in the run game. Flowers did run for 67 yards, with a dazzling touchdown brought back because his elbow touched the ground. Bottom line, however, is that he doesn’t look anything like a dark horse Heisman contender at the moment.
• D’Ernest Johnson ran for just 15 yards on 13 carries.
• The defense played well again. They sacked Stony Brook QB Joe Carbone five times and intercepted him three times. The Seawolves gained just 229 total yards.
• USF had a punt blocked for the second week in a row. Other than that, Jonathan Hernandez had a fantastic game with six punts for a 49.5 yard average.
• Darius Tice’s late touchdown helped the Bulls run their streak of 30+ points scored to 19 straight games.
• It’s not super convincing, but the Bulls are 2-0. They start conference play next Saturday against UConn at noon.