Report Card and Game Balls @USF

Sorry that I'm late with this. Here's my take on Saturday's win up in Tampa vs USF. I felt we did well for the most part, We did have some mistakes, and we were sloppy with the ball, turning it over 4 times and going into ACC play now, we have to cut those out. Stephen reinjured his ankle in this game, but other than that, all three phases of the game did pretty well. 

Offensively, we had 540 yards of total offense. 165 yards rushing and 375 passing. Duke had 84 yards and a TD on 14 carries. Solid game out of Gus the Bus (53 yards on 10 carries), and Dallas with another 34 yards on 13 carries and 2 TDs. Big day for Hurns in the receiving game with 81 yards on 5 catches. Big game for Stacy here having 96 yards on 4 catches, with two of those catches being for 6. Nice performances from Phillip and Herbie with the latter having a TD. Few things that concerned me a bit here. Ball security being one of them. Twice Duke loses fumbles in the red zone costing us points here. Need to clean that up there. Ryan and Gray each threw picks, Gray's was a Pick 6. Need to be better and clean up those mistakes. Of the 7 penalties on Saturday, 5 were on the offense and 3 of those penalties were false starts. The other 2 were: holding and Delay of Game. Gotta correct those ME's going forward now that we're going to start ACC play. Overall, good performance, but could be better. Grade: B-

Defensively, we forced 3 turnovers in this game, one being a pick and the other two were fumbles forced and recovered. WE did give up the TD near the end of that game. We did allow USF's back Marcus Shaw to get 127 yards on 20 carries with 1 TD, but other than that, we held the Bulls to 99 yards rushing and 288 yards total offense. The good part was after the 1st quarter, where Shaw had 64 of his yards, our D holds them to 63 yards the rest of the day. Still though, we need to get that run Defense shored up a little bit more before GT comes in on Saturday for the beginning of our ACC play. We held the Bulls to 2-14 on 3rd down conversions and 7 three and outs. We sacked their QB Bench 5 times. Of the 7 penalties we had in this game, not one penalty on the D. Tremendous work here overall. Grade: B+

Special Teams wise, Matty misses a chip shot to end the half. We had Duke returns the opening kick to the 5 where we score on the next play. We had 97 yards of returns (66 on KR's and 31 yards on PR's). The downer here was that we had two big X-Plays here called back by really stupid penalties (one of which cost us 6), In games where field position is going to be vital, these are mistakes we can't have. The good part was that our Return Defense did a very good job here, holding USF to 81 yards of returns (52 on KR's and 29 on PR's). We started drives on Saturday on Average from our own 40 and USF started drives from their own 19. However, the matter we really need to fix are the 2 penalties we committed here (again, one that cost us 6 on Duke's KR) last night in this area.  One was being the block in the back on Tracy and the other being the hold on Big Mo on Duke's TD that was called back. Those ME's need to be fixed before we start ACC play on Saturday vs GT because those mistakes come back to bite you, especially, if the game is in the balance here. Overall, good, but there is some room for improvement. Grade: C

Now, to Game Balls. This week, I'm going to give out two game balls. 

1. Stephen Morris - 11-16, 222 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs
2. Jimmy Gaines - 7 Tackles, 1 Fumble recovery for TD

Going forward, very good effort, but there were still some ME's (Mental Errors), that still need to be fixed, namely the penalties and ball security. Still a little bit too many of those penalties on O (5 to be exact), and the other 2 on STs. The ones that bother me the most were the 2 on STs because that's hidden yardage you can't afford to lose in those situations and it cost us 6 points. In a close game against a good opponent, those ST penalties can come back to bite you. Gotta be sure we correct those going forward now that we're beginning ACC play next week vs GT at home at 3:30 on ESPNU. 4-0 is a good feeling right now, but we could still get better and cut the ME's now. Take care and GO CANES!