Consistency.
It was the word of the night for head coach Skip Holtz and something that the USF Bulls seem to struggle to maintain at times, both on the field and in their conference.
The Big East will soon become the conference of Big Changes, with six new teams poised to join the Bulls’ little corner of the Football Bowl Subdivision for the 2013 season. Two prominent members in Syracuse and Pittsburgh will leave it. With these alterations rapidly approaching, it’s hard to predict what the long-term goals of USF’s football program will be.
But this season’s ultimate goal is very clear: be the Big East champions.
It is a goal that was reflected in the Bulls’ play against Chattanooga. Though the final score of 34-13 may not cast the impression of a blowout, USF was in control throughout the entire game. Quarterback B.J. Daniels led the way by passing for two touchdowns and running one in on his own, while the defense managed to hold the pressing Mocs to only one trip to the Bulls’ end zone. It was, by all accounts, a good response to the first test of an arduous season.
“The goal coming into tonight was to be 1-0,” Holtz said, and the Bulls hope their first game of the season sets a precedent for the rest of it. Though the team is bound to trip over the mistakes and costly penalties it seems to always face, the primary objective will remain the same: when the final seconds of the fourth quarter tick away, the Bulls should both expect and deserve to come out on top in every game solely because of what they’ve done on the field.
This aim will not be achieved easily. USF will be up against preseason ranked Top 25 teams- No. 7 Florida State and No. 25 Louisville -within a three week period. They also finish two out of their final three games, perhaps the matches that will prove to be the most critical of the season, on the road. It is a feat that both the Bulls and the coaches of other Big East teams seem to think is accomplishable, considering USF finished second to conference favorite Louisville in the coaches’ poll.
“I don’t think we’ve hid from the fact that we want to win a conference championship. That’s one of the goals we have for the program,” Holtz said, when asked what the ultimate goal for his team this season would be. “You don’t win it by talking about it, you don’t win it by thinking about it…we’ve just got to find a way to win.”
Naturally, finding a way to win all comes back to the sentiment of consistency that Skip Holtz preached from the very start of the night.
If the Bulls can firmly establish the consistency that they have desperately tried to maintain over these past few seasons, there is little doubt that the team can conquer every obstacle that comes their way and reach every goal they set for themselves.
The first goal? Already reached.
Samantha Ouimette is the sports editor of The Crow’s Nest. She can be reached at ouimette@mail.usf.edu.
Featured photo courtesy of J. Meric and USF Athletics.
