Following South Florida Football’s second-straight bowl game victory in the Hawai’i Bowl, USF saw six Bulls named to Phil Steele’s American Athletic All-Conference teams.
USF downed San Jose State, 41-39, in a five-overtime thriller on Christmas Eve that stands as the longest game in program history and the Bulls’ eighth bowl game victory in 12 appearances, including back-to-back wins in head coach Alex Golesh‘s first two seasons. The Bulls finished 7-6 as Golesh became the first USF head coach to win his first two bowl game appearances.
FOR THE BEST USF SPORTS COVERAGE CHECK OUT GOUSFBULLS.COM
Phil Steele named USF punter Andrew Stokes to his First Team All-AAC list as Stokes finished the season leading the conference with 27 punts downed inside the 20, just three short of the USF record, and 45.4 average that stands second all-time in the USF record books. Stokes punted 69 times or 3,141 yards, the third-most yardage in a season at USF, and capped his final season with a stellar outing in the Hawai’i Bowl. In the victory over San Jose State, Stokes hit a 72-yard punt that tied as the longest in program history and his 51.0 -yard average on seven punts were a career-best that ranks fourth all-time at USF.
Steele also named defensive tackle Decarius Hawthorne to the second team, wide receiver Sean Atkins to the third team as a wide receiver and fourth team as a punt returner, linebacker Mac Harris to the third team, running back Kelley Joiner Jr. and defensive tackle Bernard Gooden to the fourth team.
Hawthorne led USF defensive linemen with 40 tackles and ranked second on the team with 10.5 tackles for loss while adding 2.5 sacks, three quarterback hurries, two pass breakups, a fumble recovery and a forced fumble.
Atkins posted his sixth career 100-yard game in the Hawai’i Bowl (11 catches for 104 yards) as he passed Andre Davis (2,136) for the USF career receiving yardage record. Atkins’ 79 catches for 781 yards on the year rank second and fifth all-time on the USF season charts. Atkins ended his career with a record tying 31-straight games with a reception and USF career records of 200 catches for 2,167 yards. The former walk-on previously set USF season records with 92 catches for 1,054 yards in 2023.
Harris led USF with a career-best 82 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, four sacks and six quarterback hurries while adding two forced fumbles, two pass breakups and a fumble recovery.
Joiner ended his six-year USF career with a breakout season, leading the Bulls with 799 yards rushing and 12 rushing touchdowns, which tied for the fifth-most in a season. He added eight catches for 51 yards and two touchdowns. Joiner ended his career ranked fifth all-time at USF with 2,221 career yards rushing.
Gooden posted 35 tackles and ranked third on the team with 10 tackles for loss while adding 1.5 sacks, four quarterback hurries, two fumble recoveries and two pass break-ups.
ABOUT USF FOOTBALL
The USF football program first took the field in 1997 and completed its 28th season in 2024 with its second-straight bowl victory in the Hawai’i Bowl. Head coach Alex Golesh posted a program-best six-game turnaround and a Boca Raton Bowl victory in his first season in 2023. USF completed construction on a new $22 million Indoor Performance Facility in 2023 and a $340-million on-campus stadium and football operations center broke ground in the fall of 2024 and is slated for completion by 2027. The Bulls have posted 17 winning seasons, earned 16 All-America selections (including two consensus selections, the last coming in 2021), as well as 33 first-team all-conference honorees. USF has had 30 players selected in the NFL Draft and the Bulls have made 12 bowl game appearances (going 8-4), posting a program-record six straight appearances from 2005-2010 and making four straight bowl appearances from 2015-18. USF posted back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2016 and 2017, logging a program-record 11-2 mark in 2016, while finishing both seasons ranked in the Top 25. USF spent a program-record 20 straight weeks ranked in the Top 25 during the 2016 and 2017 campaigns and reached as high as No. 2 in the Associated Press rankings during the 2007 season.
Follow @USFFootball on Twitter for all the latest information concerning the USF Football program.
