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Bulls must show they can handle success

Staff photo by SCOTT ISKOWITZ

After a midseason slide for a second consecutive year, Leavitt overhauled many aspects of the Bull's practice routines.

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 13, 2009

TAMPA - It was a long summer for University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt. After watching a midseason slide take his Bulls out of Big East contention for a second consecutive year, Leavitt ordered a detailed study of every aspect of his program - from the pace of practice, to conditioning, to meeting schedules, you name it.

Everything.

He didn't like what he saw.

"We changed a lot, a lot," Leavitt said. "I spent a lot of reflection time. It's not that what we were doing before was wrong, but I just wanted to see if we needed to make changes."

We'll get into the details of those changes in a minute, but the question for the 21st-ranked Bulls now is whether all that made a difference. It's hard to say for sure that it has just yet.

Although USF is 5-0, that's the same record the Bulls had at this point the past two seasons. If they're still undefeated after Thursday's game at Raymond James Stadium against No. 8 Cincinnati, though, the verdict will be in.

The Bulls, after all, are on a pretty big stage now.

"Well, Cincinnati is the biggest game because it's the next one," Leavitt said. "A game like this is big, but just don't bring the game too quickly. Get out there and the game will come when it comes - focus in practice, try to get better. We don't talk about the game a lot. We focus on practice. These games are easy for me (to prepare for)."

Even if they don't win, though, it doesn't mean that changes weren't in order.

"I never felt like we had a slump in the other two years," Leavitt said. "I felt like we had injuries and didn't have enough depth for people to come up and play at the same level once people got hurt."

The most noticeable change has been on the practice field. The Bulls used to have their frontline offense and defense practice on separate fields against scout teams as they prepared for a game. Now, those units are on the same field - practicing against second-teamers who run the opposition's plays.

"We've tried to go at a lot higher level of competition in practice," running backs coach Carl Franks said. "We've tried to go with a faster tempo and give a little bit better look for each side of the ball than we have in the past. It makes all of our guys feel they're responsible for the team."

It may sound like a small thing, and a lot of teams do it this way so this is not exactly split-the-atom stuff. The results have been noticeable, though. When senior quarterback Matt Grothe went down, for instance, freshman B.J. Daniels was ready to step in and play at Florida State. And the Bulls' strength so far clearly has been an improved defense, particularly the pass rush, and that also could be a benefit of the livelier practices. They have a lot more depth along the line on both sides of the ball.

Now we'll see how they handle it. After Cincinnati there are games at Pitt and back home with West Virginia. Should the Bulls successfully get through this stretch, they'll be a front-runner in the Big East for a BCS bowl.

Uh, sorry. Got ahead of things there.

"You know we've been in this position before," Leavitt said.

Two years ago the Bulls rose to No. 2 in the rankings before losing three in a row. Last year, USF worked back into the Top 10 but then lost four of five.

The injuries Leavitt spoke of were major contributors to the losses. Defensive end George Selvie, for instance, was a shell of his normally dominating self for much of last season because of an injured ankle that limited him to 5.5 sacks. The Bulls didn't have enough depth to help overcome.

But ask FSU if the Bulls are a one-man gang along the defensive line now. The Seminoles will tell you about Jason Pierre-Paul, Selvie's counterpart on the line. Pierre-Paul caused such havoc during USF's 17-7 win that he was named Big East Defensive Player of the Week. They'll tell you about the waves of standout defensive players USF kept shuttling in, a sure sign of the Bulls' depth.

Yeah, change can be a good thing.

"We're not there yet, but we're better," Leavitt said. "We're still building. It's getting closer to where we want to be."

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