USF offense has big game in loss to UCF

by Gary Shelton on November 28, 2020

in general

Saturday, 3 a.m.

There haven't been a lot of moments, or a lot of performances, for USF to feel good about during their lost 2020 season.

They lost eight of nine football games, most of them by lopsided scores. They gave up more than 40 points five times. They lost their last eight games.

Still, the Bulls managed to go out with one of their best offensive performances of the season in Friday's 58-46 loss to Central Florida, their cross-state rival.






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Quarterback Jordan McCloud hit 32 of 46 passes for 404 yards and four touchdowns in the game, perhaps the most fight the Bulls have shown all season. Running backs Kelley Joiner Jr. and Brian Battie rushed for 116 and 102 yards, respectively, to become the first Bulls duo to each record at least 100 yards since Johnny Ford (164) and Jordan Cronkrite (103) against UConn on Oct. 20, 2018.

Defensively, the Bulls couldn't slow down the Knights, either, as quarterback Dillon Gabriel threw for 336 yards and four scores of his own. Greg McRae added 130 yards rushing and Bentavoius Thompson had 110.

For the game, the Knights had 577 yards of offense.

The Bulls were within 45-38 before a key fumble in the fourth period.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed that we couldn’t finish it there in the fourth quarter," said USF coach Jeff Scott. "We talked about it at halftime that we were gonna come out and we were gonna stop them on defense and then get the ball back. We’re gonna go score; we’re gonna get it to a one-score game in the fourth quarter and that’s exactly what we did.

" We got the ball back with (9:10) on the clock in a one-score game. Unfortunately, we had a fumble there that really changed the momentum. Our players are hurt. They put a lot into this. I told them in the locker room obviously we’re all disappointed that we had some critical mistakes and didn’t make enough of the plays we needed to get the victory that we all wanted today. But I also told our guys how proud of them I am to come into this game with the challenging season that we’ve had. The No. 1 thing that I wanted to see going into this game was our effort and if we were willing to finish the right way. Even though the game was already over, my favorite drive of the game was the last drive. The offense went down there and played like the game was on the line and scored a touchdown, went for two. That’s something we’re gonna build off of.”

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