TAMPA, Fla. — Prognosticators searching for reasons for the favored BYU Cougars to lose on Saturday at South Florida don’t have to look far.
Three of BYU’s top six players are out for the remainder of the season, or close to it. The program is winless (0-7) in the state of Florida, has a 6-9 record in games in the Eastern Time Zone since it went independent in 2011 and is 11-19 since 1980 that far from home.
Oh, by the way — the Cougars’ starting quarterback is a redshirt freshman who played baseball last spring and has thrown a grand total of seven passes this season, completing four. Jaren Hall, poised to become the first African American to start at quarterback since BYU officially began playing intercollegiate football in 1922, hasn’t played full time in an organized game that involves an actual football and tackling since November 2015.
Saturday is expected to be quite warm here at Raymond James Stadium, with temperatures expected in the high 80s. It never got over 50 degrees in Provo on Thursday.
“Make no mistake about it, this is going to be a really big challenge. They are like a lot of teams in Florida. They’ve got a lot of skill, a lot of guys who can run at all positions. They have a lot of talented players.” — BYU offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes, on South Florida
But those are nothing but cheap excuses to forget about, opportunities to savor and challenges to overcome, BYU’s football players and coaches have said for most of the past two weeks as they’ve marinated in that puzzling 28-21 loss at Toledo on Sept. 28.
Backed into a corner, and with their bowl hopes possibly teetering on the outcome, the Cougars and their rookie fill-in QB take on the Bulls (2-3) at 1:30 p.m. MDT hoping to snap a two-game losing skid and regain the momentum they will surely need with No. 14 Boise State visiting Provo next week.
“We need to get this win,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake said succinctly last Monday. “More than anything, we need to see our guys play their best, and we haven’t seen that. It’s my job as the coach to make sure they play their best this Saturday.”
On paper, South Florida appears to be the least-talented team the Cougars will face in their first eight games this season, but that doesn’t mean the Bulls aren’t dangerous — or feeling their own oats after crushing UConn 48-22 last week while the Cougars were idle, healing up, preparing Hall to take over for Zach Wilson (fractured thumb) and wondering what happened in the Upper Midwest.
“Make no mistake about it, this is going to be a really big challenge,” offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes said. “They are like a lot of teams in Florida. They’ve got a lot of skill, a lot of guys who can run at all positions. They have a lot of talented players.”
Confident players, too.
The Bulls know all about BYU’s injury woes — top performers Ty’Son Williams and Zayne Anderson have been lost for the season — and are eager to make a statement against what coach Charlie Strong has referred to as a Power Five quality opponent. Perhaps he is not aware that the Cougars tend to play poorly in the Sunshine State, beginning in 1976 when they lost 49-21 to Oklahoma State at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando and continuing through that 55-48 double-overtime loss to Memphis at the Miami Beach Bowl that ended in an ugly brawl.
In between, BYU has also lost to Ohio State (Citrus Bowl), Miami, Florida State (twice) and Central Florida.
BYU and South Florida, a member of the American Athletic Conference (AAC), have never met before. The Bulls will return the trip on Sept. 25, 2021 as part of a series set up by BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe and former USF AD Mark Harlan, now rival Utah’s AD.
“We have a big game coming up this week, a very important game for us,” Strong said. “This BYU team we are playing this week, they are big, physical and athletic.”
It will be BYU’s third game in the Eastern time zone this season, following the win at Tennessee and loss at Toledo. They will make a fourth trip back East in November, playing at UMass in Amherst, Massachusetts the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
Sitake said there has been a sense of urgency every week, but there is a certain do-or-die nature to this game because the Cougars have had extra time to prepare and because they faltered in all three areas at Toledo two weeks ago.
“I should be looking in the mirror, because this is stuff I am urgent to get fixed,” he said. “The players deserve it and the fans deserve it, so I am looking forward to making it happen.”
As far as their Florida futility and East Coast struggles in general are concerned, the Cougars aren’t buying it. Long plane rides are nothing new and not as taxing now that BYU leaves on Thursdays for Saturday games. And they would much rather play in the day than the evening.
“From an outside perspective, a lot of people think the travel has an effect on us,” said senior receiver Aleva Hifo. “But we like it. I don’t like waiting all day to play games. I like waking up knowing I have a football game, and not having to sit in my hotel room all day. I don’t think (Eastern time zone games) have an effect on us at all.”
While the pregame focus has centered on Hall’s first start and BYU’s offense has been under fire for averaging just 22 points per game, Cougar coaches say the they are most concerned with stopping USF’s rushing attack after the Bulls broke out with a 313-yard performance on the ground at UConn. BYU has been susceptible to the run all season.
“They have a dangerous offense,” said BYU defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki. “Those are always the scary ones. When they start getting in sync and getting on the same page as far as running their offense, I think they are really scary.”
Defensively, USF looks vulnerable but will try to match BYU’s size advantage with speed.
“We are confident that our coaches will have a good game plan for us, but we just have to go out there and do our job every play, just keep things simple and make every play that we can,” Hall said.