by Carter Brantley
In a disappointing defensive effort Saturday afternoon in Annapolis, Maryland, the USF Bulls fell 41-38 to the Navy Midshipmen.
Despite another solid effort from star quarterback, Byrum Brown, the Bulls defense couldn’t manage to slow down the Navy option attack, giving up a whopping 338 yards on the ground.
Stopping such a unique offense such as Navy’s requires discipline and sticking to your assignment, both things that USF has struggled with all year and those problems came to the forefront Saturday afternoon.
Navy also managed to string together a few nice passing plays resulting in 186 passing yards for the afternoon.
The Midshipmen ended up with over 500 total yards of offense for the afternoon.
The Bulls had several chances to get stops, but were thwarted by defensive pass interference calls that went against them as well as a running into the punter.
USF played an overall sloppy game and showed why they’re not deserving of a spot in the CFP.
The best example and showing of USF’s lack of fight and discipline came in the final drive of the game for Navy’s offense, as they were able to pick up an essentially game-clinching first down by pushing one of those massive piles 3 or 4 yards to move the chains.
The team is clearly still a few years away from being in that conversation if they ever even get there.
They lack talent and discipline on both sides of the ball, but the defense especially seems to strugfle on the road.
All three of USF’s losses have come on the road and in all of them the Bulls gave up 30+ points.
USF finishes out the season against a couple of struggling opponents in the Rice Owls and the UAB Blazers.
Last year with a chance to finish on a high note in the regular season, USF took an L against these Owls.
Now the Bulls will have to wait and see what bowl they will be selected to play in, a bitter end to what was an incredibly promising season.
They had everything in front of them with the highest odds of any group of five conference team to make the CFP.
Instead, now they will spend the rest of the winter and into the off-season, wondering what could’ve been.
