The No. 18 USF Bulls suffered their first conference defeat in Memphis Saturday afternoon. Nico Gramatica missed a game-tying 52-yard field goal as time expired, and the Tigers held on to beat USF 34-31.
Bulls head coach Alex Golesh said that this loss is on him: “I’ll take the blame. It’s on me, for us there in the fourth not being able to go get it done. It ain’t on Nico at the end. We didn’t do what we had to do to go win it. And obviously the holding call at the end didn’t help, and again, it’s not on anybody other than me to make sure that we were able to go finish in the fourth, and we didn’t.”
It was a tale of two halves for USF as they scored 24 points in the first half and took a 24-14 lead into the locker room. The Bulls would only score seven points the rest of the way as Memphis dominated play in the second half. The Bulls ran 51 plays in the first half and were only able to run 31 plays in the second half.
Quarterback Byrum Brown accounted for three of the Bulls’ touchdowns in the first half, as he ran for two touchdowns and passed for another. He accounted for 390 yards of offense in the Bulls’ loss.
In the fourth quarter, with Memphis trying to keep their playoff and conference title hopes alive, they outscored the Bulls 17-0 and came away with a 34-31 win. Memphis has been an excellent fourth-quarter team this season, outscoring opponents in the fourth quarter by a margin of 99-21.
Playing on a gimpy ankle, Memphis quarterback Brenden Lewis completed 27-of-44 passes for 307 yards and two touchdowns. Lewis also ran for 35 yards to lead Memphis in rushing. He did not throw an interception. This ended a streak of 15 consecutive games for the USF defense forcing a turnover, as the Bulls were unable to create any turnovers against the Tigers.
Give the Memphis defense credit; they made all the big plays in the second half. After allowing USF 349 yards in the first half, the Tigers shut down the Bulls’ high-powered offense, allowing just 215 yards in the second half.
The USF defense played perhaps its worst half of football this season. They could not get a stop when they needed one and allowed Memphis 329 yards of offense in the second half. The Bulls’ defense allowed Lewis to pass for 241 yards in the second half after allowing just 80 passing yards in the first half.
Linebacker Mac Harris, who led the Bulls with 13 tackles, talked about the Memphis offense: “I mean, that’s a great offense. You can’t miss a beat. They’ve shown several times over the course of the games that they’ve played that they can get streaky toward the end of the game, and that’s what they did tonight.”
The Bulls managed to keep the Tigers’ run game in check, allowing just 129 rushing yards. Memphis came into the game averaging 221 yards rushing per game.
Offensively, the Bulls moved the ball at will in the first half but struggled to maintain any offensive momentum in the second half.
With the Bulls up 31-17 to start the fourth quarter, Memphis running back Greg DeRosiers Jr. had a 13-yard touchdown run to make it a 31-24 game with 13:13 left in the fourth. After a USF punt, Memphis drove down the field and Gianni Spetic kicked a 28-yard field goal to make it 31-27. After another Bulls punt, the Tigers drove 70 yards, culminating with a Lewis touchdown pass, and Memphis had its first lead since the first quarter, 34-31. The Bulls would get in position to try a 52-yard field goal, but Gramatica was wide left and Memphis got the 34-31 win.
Does this loss mean the conference championship aspirations and a berth in the college football playoffs are over? Most likely. Memphis still has to play Navy and Tulane, and they will host both of those games. The Bulls will have to win out the rest of the way and hope that either Navy or Tulane can knock off Memphis to keep their postseason goals alive. The Bulls must still play at Navy later in the season, but Golesh said they are not looking ahead.
“We’ve never looked ahead. We’ve never talked about a conference championship. It’s never been about anything past who we are playing. It’s never been about anything other than trying to be the very best version of ourselves.”
For the first time this season, the Bulls were unable to finish the game in the fourth quarter and secure a stop when they needed one. Throughout the game, the offense put themselves into too many third-and-long and fourth-and-long situations. When you let that happen, you greatly diminish your chances of winning, and USF found out by losing their first conference game 34-31.
The Bulls have a bye next week before returning home to play UTSA in a nationally televised game on Thursday, November 6th.