University of South Florida
UTSA
USF Football Looks To Stay Unbeaten on the Road at UTSA
October 06, 2026 | Football
GAME 6: Bulls at Roadrunnersย ย
Alamodome (34,984) โข San Antonio, Texas โข Thursday, Oct. 8 โข 7:30 PM (ET)
TV:ย ESPN - Play-by-Play:ย Matt Barrie; Analyst: Chase Daniel; Sideline: Paul Carcaterra
RADIO: Q105FM &ย Bulls Unlimited (digital) - Play-by-Play: Jim Lighthall, Analyst:ย Joey Johnstonย Sideline: Rock Riley
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The South Florida Bulls have some things to fix โ and not much time for those repairs โ as they prepare for a short-week American Conference road trip to the UTSA Roadrunners for an ESPN game Thursday night in San Antonio, Texas.
The Bulls (4-1, 1-1), coming off a 17-13 home defeat against Temple, must travel to the Alamodome, where the Roadrunners (4-1, 1-0) are 25-1 in conference games since 2020 (including three seasons in Conference USA).
"The challenges are getting in the amount of work to compete in the game, but also (physical) recovery,'' head coach Brian Hartline said Monday. "The balance is the art of scheduling, how to schedule these guys the right way and get things done on a short week. We're off to a good start but definitely trying to take it (workload) off physically and put more on them mentally.''
After the Temple defeat, Hartline said "we are still our own worst enemy on game day'' and the Bulls had issues that "were finally starting to kick us in the butt.'' Offensively, in the last two weeks against Bowling Green and Temple, the Bulls have combined for 27 points and 533 yards.
"We're not going to keep doing the same things we're doing and expect it to change,'' Hartline said. "A lot of it is making the routine plays routinely. There have been flashes of what we're capable of, but we've got to do things more consistently.''
Hartline said he refused to use the influx of new players โ a 45-player transfer portal class and 65 new players overall โ as an excuse for anything. Five games into the season, he said all of South Florida's players should be considered "vets.''
"The longer you're together, the more chemistry you get, the more you grow,'' Hartline said. "So, we're trying the best we can to make up for lost time. That's always the goal in your first year. But we're grownups. We've got plenty of guys (good players). We just need to clean up the mistakes and do a better job of executing in certain areas.''
Hartline said he and his staff are analyzing why outstanding practice performances haven't necessarily translated into similar efforts during the games. He's acutely aware that the initial drives of each half produced points against Temple, but the offense mostly struggled during the game's other junctures.
And despite the defense's overall standout efforts (19th nationally in scoring defense at 14.6 points per game, 39th nationally in total defense at 312.4 yards allowed per game), Hartline didn't like the way Temple was let off the hook after being pinned at its 4-yard line (it then produced a 10-play, 96-yard fourth-quarter touchdown drive to win the game).
Hartline said his biggest areas of concern are too many penalties at inopportune moments in recent games, overall offensive execution and the defense giving up a rare (but costly) big play because someone is caught out of position.
He also said he has lamented some playcalling at times.
"We have good plans, don't get me wrong,'' Hartline said. "But (there are) three, four, five plays that maybe I'm really mad at myself for allowing that to be called or (that it) made it to the call sheet. Whatever that is, it's on us (as coaches). But I would say for the most part, we've been pretty happy with where we're at (managing the game). โฆ We need to get better at execution, consistency and drive-out (of the play).''
To move forward, offensive lineman Caleb Cook said it's all about "self-improvement.''ย
"Everybody has responded really well (in practice),'' Cook said. "When you have a loss as disappointing as that (Temple), obviously you're not going to feel good. You're gonna get (angry). You're gonna be mad. But at the end of the day, that wasn't our last game. Our goals are still in front of us. We can't have (what happened in) one game dictate how we play (in the next game). Whether we won or lost, whether we did great or we did terrible, the mistakes are still there. We've got to correct those mistakes and do better.''
Defensively, the Bulls will be challenged by Roadrunners redshirt senior quarterback Owen McCown, a left-hander who has completed 68.2-percent of his passes for 1,010 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions. He's the son of 18-year NFL veteran Josh McCown, a former Tampa Bay Buccaneer who was Hartline's teammate with the Cleveland Browns in 2015. The younger McCown was sacked five times by the Bulls and limited to 200 yards passing in last season's 55-23 win against the Roadrunners at Raymond James Stadium.ย
"Obviously, nobody likes to lose, so we're taking that pretty hard,'' defensive tackle Major Dillard said. "We can't dwell on it, but we definitely want the wound to sting a little bit. That way, we can make sure it doesn't happen again.
"Right now, we're trying to focus on our details, stay in our playbook. It's a quick turnaround this week, so we've really got to hone-in and know what we're doing. If we do that, we'll be just fine.''
โ#GoBulsโ
Joey Johnston
Athletics Senior Writer
