Friday, 4 a.m.
Yes, their schedule remains formidable. True, there are a lot of challenges ahead.
But for the time being, take a gander at the new and improved South Florida Bulls.
The Bulls broke a 19-game losing streak against ranked opponents Thursday night, wearing out the No. 25-ranked Boise State Broncos at Raymond James Stadium.
The Bulls, 7-6 a year ago, took advantage of big plays to lead its victory. USF receovered three fumbles, stopped four (of six) fourth-down attempts, hit a 45 yard pass on a fake punt (Locklan Hewlett to Deshaun Singleton), hit Chas Nimrod with a 55-yard pass and got running touchdowns of 23 yards and 15 yards from Byrum Brown, an eight-yrd run from Crevious Norton and field goals of 52 and 33 yards from Nico Gramatica.
The fear coming in was that USF had over-scheduled itself. That still may be the case. USF must play at 15th-ranked Florida and 10-ranked Miami in the hext two weeks.
But for the first time in a long while, you can see potential out of the Bulls.
Much of the reason is the return of Brown, who missed much of last season with an injury. Brown completed passes for 210 yards and ran for 43 more Thursdaynihgt,
Nimrod caught three passes for 96 yards ad Keshaun Singleton caught five for 93.
Defensively, Jhalyn Shula had 14 tackles and De'Shawn Rucker had 11.