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'We Good?' Bulls Were Good Enough

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

USF's coach Jim Leavitt is drenched with ice and sports drink after defeating UConn 17-13.

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By JOE HENDERSON

jhenderson@tampatrib.com

Published: November 24, 2008

Updated: 11/24/2008 12:44 am

TAMPA - After watching their season cartwheel in flames toward the ground, any outcome where you can use "win" to describe what happened is just fine with the University of South Florida.

And so it is that we dutifully report that on a seasonably cool Sunday night at Ray-Jay, USF did indeed win a football game. The Bulls beat Connecticut 17-13, and thus likely assured they will play in a bowl game, probably the new one in St. Pete, and drink from the glass of fullness.

"That's pretty neat! That's positive stuff! That's cup-half-full," Bulls coach Jim "We Good?" Leavitt said when he was asked afterward about clinching the program's fourth straight bowl berth.

Leavitt then slapped the podium hard, and shouted, "We good?" Actually, there was more to talk about but it never happened because he left the room after a postgame briefing that lasted 2 minutes, 24 seconds.

He's just silly when he acts like that.

Then again, Leavitt hasn't had to talk about success lately, so maybe he's out of practice. The Bulls had lost three in a row and four out of five before this, free-falling from the Top 10 in the country to near the bottom of the pack in the Big East.

Maybe because of that, the Bulls showed some passion in this game, jumping around and stuff - a pleasant sight after some of their recent dispirited showings. But a lot of the same old mistakes that helped kneecap this season showed up again, almost sabotaging this one as well.

We good?

Mirrors The Season

Good enough, anyway.

Leavitt used the word "relentless" to describe the defense. The Bulls held UConn's superb running back, Donald Brown, to 96 yards.

But I'm not sure what it says when we're not surprised when the Bulls commit 10 penalties, which they did, and drop passes.

Nor were the obligatory dubious decisions anything we haven't seen before, such as going for it on fourth-and-1 at USF's 45 with four minutes to play in the first half. The Bulls led 10-0 at the time, but a run by Matt Grothe was stuffed and the Huskies were set up in USF's turf. UConn turned it into a field goal. Even when Dontavia Bogan ran the kickoff back 71 yards to the Huskies' 20 with 28 seconds left in the half. Alas, Grothe overthrew A.J. Love in the end zone, then threw an interception.

This season has been like that.

The Bulls were never as good as their early-season press clippings and perhaps they aren't as bad as they showed in the weeks leading up to this one. They're in the mediocre middle - a so-so, seven-win team likely headed to the St. Pete Bowl.

Changes Needed

Leavitt, as we have seen, can be one weird duck. I've supported him strongly in the past and I still think he's a pretty good coach, but there's no reason to be so cantankerous. His bosses at USF - that assumes he has one - need to sit him down and remind him that as the head coach of the flagship program at the university, he represents the entire school. He tends to forget that.

It won't happen, of course. That would be cup-half-empty. And as weird as this season has been, a victory in the finale at West Virginia would leave the Bulls 8-4. That might leave the glass all the way full.

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