USF GAME NOTES
Students in the vicinity of USF football's Morsani Practice Complex on Tuesday morning probably wondered what they were hearing.
Intense crowd noise at jet-engine decibels.
Verse after verse of "The Orange and Blue,'' the University of Florida's fight song.
And, of course …
Two bits! Four bits! Six bits, a dollar! All for the Gators, stand up and holler!
If you didn't know better, you might have felt like you were at Gainesville's 88,548-seat Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, long known as one of college football's loudest and most intimidating venues.
That was precisely the point.
As the USF Bulls (1-1) prepare for one of this season's biggest challenges, a date with the No. 18-ranked Florida Gators (1-1), Coach Jeff Scott and staff are acclimating their players with a simulation of the sights and sounds they could encounter on Saturday night.
"I'm looking forward to seeing how our guys handle the crowd noise,'' Scott said. "I expect it be loud like it always is there for a night game. For us to operate on offense with all the motions and snap counts, it's definitely going to be a challenge.
"You've got to change up how you do your snap count. Obviously, you can't go into a verbal cadence. That's why we had those big loud speakers out there (at practice). A lot of it is eye contact with each other and sometimes it's hand signals. It's really more of an issue for your offense than it is for the defense. But we introduced that and we'll be doing it all week.''
The Bulls enjoyed success last season during their trip to Provo, Utah, where they weathered BYU's SEC-like environment. The Bulls fell, 35-27, in a competitive effort and their offensive line had zero pre-snap penalties, an uncommon display of poise in a stadium that had unraveled other opponents.
Two games into the 2022 season, USF ranks No. 2 in the nation in fewest penalties per game (3.0) and No. 12 in fewest penalty yards per game (32.50).
"The noise is definitely a factor, but I don't think it's going to be a determining factor,'' senior center Brad Cecil said. "We've played in loud environments before. I know this stadium will hold more (people), but it's something we're preparing for. We have all type of different answers when it comes to snap counts and how we communicate. The sound and noise level will be there, but I think we'll be ready for it.''
Bulls' senior defensive end Jatorian Hansford, a transfer from Missouri, won two of his four meetings against the Gators during SEC play, including a 38-17 victory in Gainesville during his freshman season in 2018.
"It's a beautiful crowd,''' Hansford said. "They get a little rowdy at times, but it's nice, especially when you beat them. I say it's beautiful because where I come from (Forsyth, Georgia), there aren't many people who have the opportunity to play in front of a crowd like that. Especially when you win. It's great. It's an amazing experience to be able to play at the Swamp.''
Appropriately, the stadium was dubbed "The Swamp'' in 1992 by then-Gators' coach Steve Spurrier.
"'The Swamp' is where Gators live,'' Spurrier told Mike Bianchi, then a sports columnist at the Gainesville Sun. "We feel comfortable there, but we hope our opponents feel tentative. A swamp is hot and sticky and can be dangerous. We feel that is an appropriate nickname for our stadium.''
Spurrier's Gator teams lost only six times at the Swamp during his 12 seasons as head coach and each of the defeats was against a ranked team (twice to Bobby Bowden's No. 1-ranked Florida State University squads). Since 1990, Spurrier's first season, the Gators are 170-33 (.837) at the Swamp for the nation's third-best home-field winning percentage during that time.
"It's easy to kind of get excited and starstruck over the stadium and who you're playing, those types of things,'' Scott said. "But really, for us to have success, we've got to bring it down very narrow and focus on controlling what we can control. How we do what we do and play how we play. I think our guys know it's a tall task, but they're excited about it.''
Scott: UF's Defense Looks 'Elite'
Scott said the Gators could be the most talented team USF will face this season. Scott said UF is loaded with five-star and four-star recruiting prospects and he described the Gator defense as having "a chance to be elite.''
"We're going to have to play very, very well to compete with these guys because they're super talented,'' Scott said. "There's not a weakness, position-wise, on offense, defense or special teams. We don't have to play perfect, but we have to play a lot better than we have played.
"On a scale of zero to 10, with our best being a 10, I think in the first two games we're at about a five. We haven't played our best yet. There's a whole different level that we can go to. I want to see us go out there and play the very best we can, whatever that looks like. At the end of the game, we'll look up and see how that matches up against them.''
Looking For The Upset
Scott said he reminded USF players that "the best team on paper doesn't win the game, it's the team that plays the best.''
"People look at these games on paper, but we're not going to win the game on paper,'' Scott said. "But at the end of the day, it's going to be the team that plays the best for those four quarters. It just so happened that last week we got a few examples of that.''
He pointed to the last weekend's Sun Belt Conference uprising —Marshall over Notre Dame, Appalachian State over Texas A&M, Georgia Southern over Nebraska — as an example of never taking anything for granted.
Cecil said USF players have confidence.
"I think we draw confidence from our preparation,'' Cecil said. "We've worked extremely hard from literally the day (last) season ended. That brings us confidence. We can't get caught up in the stadium lights and whatever the fans are yelling. We just fall back on our preparation.
"One of my favorite quotes is 'You don't rise to the occasion, you fall back on your training.' So, we're falling back on our training. We prepped well enough over the summer and in camp. We're going to have a good week of practice. Then we go up there to take care of business.''
Injury report
Scott said he's hoping that linebacker Antonio Grier, wide receiver Ajou Ajou and safety Matthew Hill — all of whom did not play against Howard — will be ready to go against Florida. Scott isn't as certain about the availability of cornerback Christian Williams, who hasn't played since the first half of the opener against BYU, and probably won't know for sure until game time.
– Go Bulls –
