USF (1-1) struggled in all three phases in road game at College Football Playoff contender Notre Dame (2-0).
SOUTH BEND, Ind., SEPT. 19, 2020 – Underdog USF couldn’t rekindle the magic of its 2011 upset win at Notre Dame, falling to the seventh-ranked Irish, 52-0, in the second game of the all-time series on Saturday afternoon.
National title contender Notre Dame (2-0) scored touchdowns on each of its first four drives and took a 35-0 lead into halftime. The Irish rushed for six touchdowns – one with just 2:15 remaining – in their 20th straight home victory.
Sophomore back Johnny Ford (Miami) shined once again on a tough day all around for USF (1-1), rushing for a team-high 70 yards on six carries (11.7). Two of Ford’s runs went for 42 and 22 yards on two of the Bulls’ five trips inside Irish territory that didn’t result in points.
Starting quarterback Jordan McCloud (Tampa) completed 8 of 14 passes for 64 yards and averaged 4.2 yards on five carries. USF played four different quarterbacks and finished with 231 total yards of offense.
Electing to receive the opening kickoff, Notre Dame seized the momentum with four straight touchdown drives and built a 35-0 lead by halftime.
USF put itself in a great position to cut into a 14-0 Irish lead with a 42-yard run by Ford all the way down to the Notre Dame 38 on the first play of the Bulls’ second drive. A holding penalty two plays later backed up the Bulls on a potential first-down conversion run by Kelley Joiner Jr. (Clermont, Fla.) and USF was stopped on fourth-and-5 play from the Irish 33.
Trailing 28-0, USF’s defense put its top highlight of the first half on tape when safety Mekhi LaPointe (Seffner, Fla.) stopped ACC Running Back of the Week Kyren Williams for a 5-yard loss on a Notre Dame third-and-3 play from the USF 15. The sequence ended with a missed field goal attempt from 38 yards out. LaPointe also broke up a pass in the end zone to force another field goal try in the third quarter.
Quarterback Ian Book’s third TD run capped off Notre Dame’s sixth and final drive of the opening half that started at the USF 25 after a snap miscue on a punt attempt by the Bulls. Another botched USF snap on special teams late in the third quarter resulted in a punt block return for a touchdown for the Irish.
In the midst of adversity, USF’s offense started to click after the break, especially on the opening drive of the second half, which was a 13-play, 54-yard sequence. McCloud kept the drive alive with a 3-yard run on fourth-and-2 at the Irish 45, but a broken-up pass halted USF’s momentum on fourth-and-4 from the Notre Dame 36.
USF made five trips into Notre Dame territory on the day and four of those drives were generated in the second half.
Graduate quarterback Noah Johnson (Tampa) started the fourth quarter with 17- and 36-yard completions to freshman Omarion Dollison (Columbia, S.C.) and junior Latrell Williams (Lake City, Fla.) on consecutive plays. Ford’s 22-yard run on third-and-long got the Bulls to the Notre Dame 19, but their most promising drive of the game ended there after four straight incompletions, including a pass breakup in the end zone on fourth down.
Katravis Marsh (Hialeah, Fla.) also led a drive in Irish territory and fellow freshman Jordan Smith (Lake City, Fla.) made his collegiate debut.
Defensively, junior safety Nick Roberts (Jacksonville, Fla.) totaled a team-high nine tackles (six solo). Senior cornerback KJ Sails (Tampa) added a career-high seven tackles while sophomore lineman Jason Vaughn (Miami) also set a career high with six stops (five solo).
Key Stats
4-for-4, 5-for-6 – Notre Dame took control early by scoring touchdowns on each of its first four drives of the game. The Irish found the end zone on five of six first-half drives and took a 35-0 lead into the break.
0-for-5 – USF came up empty-handed on all five of its trips inside Notre Dame territory.
6 – Notre Dame rushed for six touchdowns and outgained USF, 429-231, in total offensive yards.
Notables
· USF headed into Saturday leading the nation with a plus-3 turnover margin. The Bulls forced two fumbles against the Irish but didn’t record a takeaway and again didn’t turn the ball over of offense.
Quotable
Head coach Jeff Scott’s opening thoughts on USF’s road setback against No. 7 Notre Dame:
“They’ve got a playoff-caliber team (Notre Dame) and they really dominated the game from the beginning to the end. Sometimes you just gotta tip your hat when you face a great opponent. From our side, it’s obviously very disappointing, really from the first drive all the way through the game. We’ve got a hurt locker room. Our guys were excited about getting an opportunity to go play and obviously we did not play well. Notre Dame played very well, so my message to the team is, ‘Hey, we aren’t gonna make any excuses. You can sit here and write up plenty of excuses if you wanted to, but that’s not who we are and that’s not what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna take ownership.’ The ownership starts with me as the head coach. Anytime we don’t play well, I didn’t do my job. This will be an opportunity for myself and the coaches to go back and watch the video and find ways where we could’ve played better. It’s disappointing. I really believed our guys were locked in and focused. Everything that I saw this week in practice, really the 48 hours leading up to the game, the guys were really locked in, but it didn’t translate. We weren’t ready whenever the ball got kicked off, so that’s something for us to learn from.”
Scott on what he’s looking for from the Bulls moving forward:
“For us, we’ve got a 24-hour rule, just like after a victory. You spend 24 hours on that game and then you move on. For us, it will be a lot of things to coach off of and a lot of things to learn from… The biggest thing is can we learn from the mistakes that we made today and then can we move on. I think that’s the sign. We’re on a journey and there’s gonna be adversity, there’s gonna be difficult times… Now, it’s all about how we respond to this and I really challenged the team. This is an opportunity for us to see what our maturity is, our leadership, and all those things. I personally believe that our guys will respond the right way and that we can look back at this down the road as a pivotal moment when we were able to learn and become a closer team and become a better team.”
Up Next
USF continues its grueling three-game road swing at FAU on Saturday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. (TV: CBS Sports Network). The Owls are the middle game of three straight road contests against teams that won 11 games in 2019.
The Bulls begin American Athletic Conference play at No. 13/14 Cincinnati on Saturday, Oct. 3. USF returns to Raymond James Stadium for its homecoming game on Saturday, Oct. 10 against East Carolina.
About USF Football
The USF football program first took the field in 1997 and completed its 23rd season (20th at the FBS level) in 2019. The Bulls have posted 15 winning seasons, earned 14 All-America selections and 29 first-team all-conference selections and has seen 30 players selected in the NFL Draft. USF has made 10 bowl games appearances (going 6-4 in those games) and posted a program record six straight appearances from 2005-2010. The Bulls most recently made four straight bowl appearances from 2015-18 and 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 seasons and reached as high as No. 2 in the national rankings during the 2007 season.
Follow @USFFootball on twitter for all the latest information concerning the USF Football program.
