University of South Florida comes up Big in the East upsetting #20 West Virginia

October 31, 11:14 AMTampa Bay Sports ExaminerTed Fleming

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Bulls WR Carlton Mitchell reels in one of three TD passes by B.J. Danieldsa Friday night.
AP/Chris O'Meara

TAMPA – After a pair of demoralizing losses to BIG EAST ranked teams, the University of South Florida extracted a measure of revenge within the conference when they upset 20th ranked West Virginia before an announced crowd of 56,328 at Raymond James Stadium Friday night.

Redshirt quarterback B.J. Daniels sparkled for the Bulls (6-2, 2-2) using both his arm and legs rack up more total yards than the entire Mountaineers’ team. Rushing for 104 yards, the third time he has cracked the century mark this season, the 20-year old completed 13 passes for an additional 232. WVU managed 323.

“I think it was very important for out team to let loose, do what got us here” said Daniels. “Play like you’re in high school, do what got us here to South Florida. As a team we did that today. West Virginia was expecting me to run today so a lot of DBs (defensive backs) had their eyes on me and out guys got behind them. We did that in drills where one would go high and one low and they did a pretty good job doing it.”

“We were flying all over the field,” said linebacker Chris Robinson. “I think this game proves that we are back to where we were when we played Florida State. I think if we carry that the rest of the season we’ll be alright.”

USF didn’t take much time off the clock in the first half in scoring 20-points to hold an eight point edge using 2:01 (touchdown), 2:26 (field goal), 2:20 (TD and the longest, 3:11 for their last three-pointer.

Daniels completed just 50% of his passes (7/14) but the ones he did ate up some huge chunks of turf adding up to an impressive 194-yards through the air. His main target was Carlton Mitchell who reeled in three of the seven for 124 and another pair to A.J. Love for 57.

Two of the big gainers went to Mitchell a scoring grab of 49 in the opening quarter and another that went for 69 and would have gone for another score had he not stepped out of bounds at the nine. It resulted in Daniels finding Love in the corner of the end zone after the he was flushed out of the pocket. That accounted for 11-yards but Love had a reception for 45 which helped Daniels rack up his big numbers in the half.

The Bulls’ QB, who leads the team in rushing, padded his stats taking off eight times for 63-yards including a 28-yard scamper leading to more points.

The only hiccup was a short punt by WVU that took a favorable bounce landing at the three and with an illegal block the ball wound up on the 1½. That was all the Mountaineers needed to get some points as they tackled Jamar Taylor in the end zone for a safety.

Everything was clicking offensively and the defense did a good job at controlling the West Virginia attack allowing just a touchdown and field goal. Jarrett Brown was 8/15 for 101-yards but was intercepted once by Kion Wilson and sacked twice with Keith McCaskill and Kayvon Webster getting one apiece.

USF ran for more yards in the second half than the first and Daniels threw for just 39 as the defense took over and dominated making one key play after another.

''I guess a lot of people doubted us and thought we were going to go down the same path we did the last two years,'' said Daniels,'' That was a lot of garbage that our team didn't listen to.''

"They played so much better than we did the last few weeks," said head coach Jim Leavitt.

On to Rutgers.

BULL RUSH: Carlton Mitchell moved from fifth to second on the Bulls all-time receiving yards list at 1,484. The school mark is 1,523 held by Hugh Smith (1999-02) ….. USF converted two fourth downs in the game and they are 8-of-9 this season ….. The Bulls burned all three of their time-outs by 10:05 of the fourth …..

THE TAKEAWAY: Gametime temperature was 85° and felt like 92° with the humidity ….. By facing West Virginia, the University of South Florida faced their fourth ranked team, the most in school history for one season. By the end of the weekend USF will be one of just eight teams to have faced that many ranked teams (Miami, USC, Oregon, Virginia Tech, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt are the others).