Putting three points on the scoreboard 31â2 minutes into the game might have been huge for the University of South Florida football team Saturday night at Memorial Stadium.
How huge we’ll never know.
Coach Jim Leavitt bypassed a gimme field goal and instead had his Bulls try for a first down or touchdown on a fourth-and-two call from the three.
KU’s defense held quarterback Matt Grothe to a one-yard gain.
Instead of scoring on the first possession, South Florida didn’t tally a point in the first half of a 13-7 loss to the Jayhawks.
“No, I don’t second-guess it,” freshman signal-caller Grothe said. “We just got stopped. We definitely should have gone for it. We didn’t get it. It’s the way it happens, sometimes.”
Grothe, who rushed for 66 yards off 18 carries and scored a touchdown and also threw for 196 yards, blames himself for miscommunication on a third-and-three call from the four on that same game-opening drive.
“I called the wrong play,” Grothe said. “I’m not saying I would have scored if I called the right one. We would have had a better chance.”
Former Kansas State assistant coach Leavitt, whose team dropped to 3-1 entering Big East play, said it was a no-brainer to go for an early touchdown instead of a field goal.
“It was early in the game. We had less than a yard to go. It wasn’t a hard decision,” Leavitt said. “I would have done it again. If we didn’t make it, we’ve got great field position. It gave them a long field. I would have made the decision regardless. That was easy.”
The Bulls came close on their first drive of the game : and their last.
South Florida, which took over at its own 39 with 1:06 to play, drove to the KU 27 in seven plays.
Grothe threw two incompletions from the 27 in the final 13 seconds, the last play of the game a pass into the end zone intended for freshman Colby Erskin.
“I overthrew it,” Grothe said of the pass picked off by Justin Thornton. “I threw it up there, and they made a play. We didn’t finish drives tonight.”
Leavitt was confident the entire drive, which was kept alive when an apparent pass interception by Mike Rivera was ruled an incomplete pass.
“I really thought we’d win the game on the last drive,” Leavitt said. “We used our clock extremely well. We did a lot of good things. We came here expecting to win. We didn’t win. It’s disappointing.”
“I give credit to Kansas,” Leavitt said. “Thirteen points (allowed) is not awful. Kansas made some big plays. We felt we could do some things. They held us to seven points. That’s a pretty good job by their defense.”
