TAMPA—

The University of South Florida Bulls football team won their spring football game. Of course, since they played themselves, they also lost. The final score was 73-36, with the winning team being the White team, comprised of the offense. The scoring was complicated and the final score was not really indicative of how the game went, considering the limited ways the defense was able to score.

As is often the case in these types of scrimmages, it is difficult to assess where the team is. Instead of a traditional scrimmage with both sides playing offense and defense, the coaching staff had all defense on team Green and all offense on team White. Complicating matters, they used a non-traditional point system to score the game. To help offset the lack of point scoring on defense, they came up with situational points, where making a tackle or getting a sack might score points for the defense.

It was either a great day for the offense or a terrible day for the defense. The three quarterbacks alternated, but not with a regular pattern. In total, the passers accounted for 5 touchdowns and 509 yards of passing offense. The trio was led by redshirt freshman, Jordan McCloud, who accounted for more than half of the yardage (225) and two of the touchdowns. Fellow redshirt freshman, Octavious Battle, was second on the team with 146 yards and two touchdowns of his own. The bad, or perhaps a good sign for the defense, is that the quarterbacks were sacked for a total of 15 times in a game where the clock did not stop for the final three quarters. Projected starting quarterback, graduate transfer senior, Blake Barnett, finished with just 135 yards on 16 attempts and one touchdown.

On the receiving end of McCloud’s two touchdowns were Johnny Ford and Deric DuBose. The touchdown pass to Ford was for 30 yards to the back edge of the end zone while the pass to DuBose, his only target of the game was a crossing route in the middle of the end zone.

Barnett’s solo score came on the first snap of the game, when he found a wide-open Mitchell Wilcox for a 75 yard touchdown.

Barnett was sacked seven times in the game.

Battle had the least attempts of the three, finishing 8-12 and tying with McCloud with sacks, going down four times. Battle hooked up with Jernard Phillips for a 29 yard touchdown and a ten-yarder for a score to Bryce Miller.

Wilcox was the receiving leader, finishing with 90 yards. DeVontres Dukes finished with 75 yards on two catches. Odunayo Seriki was next in line, with 62 receiving yards.

With the inability for the defense to stop the pass, there wasn’t a lot of rushing on display. There were just 78 rushing yards in the entire scrimmage. Trevon Sands led on the ground with 18 yards. McArthur Burnett had 13 yards on four carries.

On defense, linebacker, Andrew Mims, led the group with six total tackles and two sacks for a total of nine yards lost. Defensive end, Greg Reaves, and DaQuan Evans finished with five tackles, each. Reaves also led the team in sacks, with three.

The Spring Game ends spring camp. The Bulls will return to camp in late summer to prepare for their season opener at home against Wisconsin on August 30th.