Takeaways, highlights, notables, sights, sound bites and learning experiences from USF's 63-14 home victory against the South Carolina State Bulldogs, and a lookahead to the Friday, Oct. 3 American Conference opener against the Charlotte 49ers.
The Quick Read
* USF's 3-1 start has included a pair of victories against nationally ranked teams (Boise State and Florida), plus a taking-care-of-business resounding victory against South Carolina State, a Football Championship Subdivision opponent. Now it's a bye week before beginning American Conference play at home against the Charlotte 49ers. It's all breaking well so far.
* USF won the game 63-14 despite having possession for just 16:53 (compared to 43:07 for South Carolina State). More often than not, that statistic means nothing. It's more about points per possession — or getting as many possessions as possible. When Tony Dungy became head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1996, he was asked to identify football's most overrated statistic. "Time of possession,'' he said.
* The USF linebackers — Mac Harris and Jhalyn Shuler — have made plenty of early season noise and put themselves on the runway to receive American Conference all-star honors (as well as getting on the All-American radar).
* USF's running game had its most productive performance (252 yards, 9.0 yards per carry) of the season, but that was against South Carolina State. The real proof will be how the Bulls perform on the ground against the premier American Conference opponents.
* And speaking of the American Conference … Memphis (4-0) over Arkansas? North Texas (4-0) beating Washington State and Army? Tulane (3-1) getting wins against Northwestern and Duke? Tulsa over Oklahoma State? Navy checking in at 3-0? The league seems pretty unpredictable and fascinating. The long conference journey is about to begin.
Game Takeaway
It was precisely the type of feel-good effort that the Bulls needed. One week after being humbled at Miami, the Bulls showed excellence in all phases during Saturday's 63-14 victory against South Carolina State on a scorching afternoon at Raymond James Stadium.
The Bulls (3-1) rolled up 63 points — one touchdown short of USF's Ray-Jay scoring record (70 vs. Florida A&M in 2011) — for just the ninth time that the program eclipsed the 60-point mark and second under Alex Golesh.
Quarterback Byrum Brown eased his way to 236 yards passing and four touchdowns, including a pair of strikes to consistent big-play threat Chas Nimrod, an acrobatic end-zone connection to Joshua Porter and a 22-yarder to tight end Jonathan Echols.
Eight players ran the ball, including Sam Franklin (touchdowns of 30 and 54 yards) and Nykahi Davenport (touchdown of 43 yards).
The defense was suffocating. Linebacker Mac Harris scored on a 93-yard interception return. The Bulls had five sacks and 10 tackles for a loss.
Special teams contributed in a big way. Jaelen Stokes blocked a punt that had Ashton Mosley scooping and scoring. The return game was dynamic with Alvon Isaac (110 yards in punt returns, plus a 34-yard kickoff return) and JeyQuan Smith (25-yard kickoff return).
Head coach Alex Golesh appreciated the complimentary football, but also noticed many areas of potential improvement. The Bulls continue to start slowly (they haven't scored a first-quarter offensive touchdown this season). There were too many penalties (eight for 80 yards) and it got particularly sloppy during the fourth quarter.
"You play to your standard, rather than playing to the opponent's standard,'' Golesh said. "You should play how you practice, how you prepare, how you go about your business. There was enough sloppiness out there that we as coaches have got to figure out why.
"I think a losing attitude would be like, 'Man, we got a blowout win. Let's move on to the next one.' If you are truly a competitor and building this thing the right way, which we are, you have to look at why that sloppiness happened. Not that you don't enjoy the win and celebrate it because wins are rare in college football and you only get 12 guaranteed opportunities. But if you are a winning program, then you've got standards that are higher than just a win. We're getting closer to that than ever before. I think the best thing was we came out at halftime with a focus and intent to be really dialed in.''
After the Bulldogs (2-2) capitalized on a tipped-ball interception and scored on a 27-yard drive to make it 21-7 at halftime, the Bulls put the game away with a 35-point third-quarter blitz, allowing them to empty the bench and get experience for a fleet of younger players.
"It was great to get the young guys involved,'' Brown said. "I feel like a lot of people touched the ball today and a lot of people made plays when their number was called. It just lets you know how deep we are. We've got playmakers from the one's (first-string), two's, three's and four's. This game gave everyone a lot of confidence.''
Harris was asked if it was satisfying to limit the Bulldogs to just 14 points. His answer was quick.
"Not satisfying at all,'' Harris said. "They shouldn't score.''
The Big Play
South Carolina State opened the game by driving to the USF 5-yard line, covering 70 yards in nine plays. But on the 10th play, second-and-5, Bulldogs QB Ryan Stubblefield was harassed by blitzing DB Jarvis Lee. The ball fluttered in the air and landed in the arms of LB Mac Harris, who raced down the right sideline untouched for a 93-yard touchdown that reversed the game's early momentum.
Game Balls
• QB Byrum Brown, who was 14-for-20 with 236 yards and four touchdowns in two-and-a-half quarters of play.
• RB Nykahi Davenport, who raced for a 43-yard touchdown on his first carry.
• RB Sam Franklin, who had four carries for 91 yards, including touchdown runs of 30 and 54 yards.
• LB Mac Harris, who had a monster game (93-yard interception return, a team-high 10 tackles, two sacks, 2.5 tackles for a loss, one forced fumble and one quarterback hurry).
• DB Jarvis Lee, who blitzed and disrupted the throwing motion of South Carolina State QB Ryan Stubblefield, creating the interception by LB Mac Harris, who returned it 93 yards for a touchdown.
• B-backer Ashton Mosley, who scooped up a blocked punt and scored a 4-yard touchdown, while collecting three tackles, a half-sack and 1.5 tackles for a loss.
• WR Chas Nimrod, who had four receptions for 119 yards, including touchdowns of 42 and 22 yards.
• WR Joshua Porter, who made a spectacular 26-yard diving touchdown reception. Overall, he had four catches for 58 yards.
• LB Jhalyn Shuler, who had seven tackles, one sack and 1.5 tackles for a loss.
• DB Jaelen Stokes, who had a blocked punt (and that block resulted in a touchdown for USF, the first time for that turnaround in 14 seasons).
Notable Numbers
4 — Number of touchdowns surrendered by USF's defense in the Bulls' three victories.
7 — Number of different USF players to score a touchdown.
7-5 — USF's three-season non-conference record under Alex Golesh.
26.2 — Average yards per reception for WR Chas Nimrod – 14 receptions for 367 yards – which ranks fifth in the nation. USF's single-season record is 23.3 by Clif Dell in 1998.
29-1 — USF's record against Football Championship Subdivision opponents since becoming a full Football Bowl Subdivision member in 2001.
35 — Points scored by USF in the third quarter (a program and conference record).
93 — Length in yards of the first-quarter interception return by LB Mac Harris, who broke the 24-year-old USF record for the longest pickoff (86 by Bernard Brown vs. Liberty on 10/27/01).
110 — Punt-return yards for Alvon Isaac, who moved into fourth place on USF's single-game list. His 22.0 average on the year ranks sixth in the nation.
Plus-118 — USF's third-quarter scoring differential (181-63) against opponents since the start of the 2024 season.
252 and 252 — The Bulls had 252 rushing yards and 252 passing yards for a total of 504.
The List
Chas Nimrod became the fifth USF player to register consecutive 100-yard receiving games in a single season. Andre Davis has the USF record with three straight 100-yard receiving games in 2013.
3 — Andre Davis (9-134 at Houston, 10/31/13; 7-110 vs. Memphis, 11/16/13; 5-113 vs. SMU, 11/23/13).
2 — Chas Nimrod (4-128 at Miami, 9/13/25; 4-119 vs. South Carolina State, 9/20/25).
2 — Sean Atkins (7-110 at Rice, 11/30/24; 11-104 vs. San Jose State, 12/24/24).
2 — Hugh Smith (6-118 at East Carolina, 10/19/02; 8-100 vs. Charleston Southern, 11/2/02).
2 — Marquez Valdes-Scantling (10-186 vs. Houston, 10/28/17; 6-152 at UConn, 11/4/17).
Next Up: Charlotte
With both teams coming off a bye week, the Bulls will host the Charlotte 49ers (1-3) in their American Conference opener on Friday, Oct. 3 at Raymond James Stadium. The 7 p.m. game will be shown on ESPN2, giving USF a much-desired national viewing platform on a wide-open Friday night (the only direct televised competition is Western Kentucky at Delaware on the CBS Sports Network). Charlotte began American play on Thursday night with a 28-17 home defeat against the Rice Owls.
USF is 2-0 against Charlotte. Both games were decisive and significant. There was a 48-14 home triumph in 2023 (which secured USF's first bowl bid in five seasons), plus last season's 59-24 victory at Charlotte, when the Bulls rolled to a program-record 425 rushing yards.
–#GoBulls–
