Who: South Florida Bulls (1-0) at No. 11 Florida State Seminoles (1-0)
When: Saturday, September 12th at 11:30 A.M. eastern time
Where: Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida (ESPN)
South Florida will look to defeat a team from Tallahassee for the second straight week, but this time, it’ll be facing one that has 29 victories in its last 30 games. Florida State got its season off to a strong start last week with a 59-16 victory over Texas State and will look to start 2-0 for the fifth straight year.
The Seminoles were impressive in most phases of the game last week. Offensively, quarterback Everett Golson passed for 302 yards and four touchdowns while running backs Dalvin Cook and Mario Pender combined for 248 yards on the ground and three touchdowns.
The guy to watch for South Florida is running back Marlon Mack. As a freshman in 2014, Mack rushed for over 1,000 yards and got off to a good start last week with 131 yards rushing and a touchdown in a 51-3 victory over Florida A&M.
After dealing with quarterback issues the last couple years, Quinton Flowers impressed for the Bulls in just his second career start, finishing 12-for-16 passing for 141 yards and two scores. Freshman tight end Elkanah Dillon could be a tough match-up for the Seminoles after catching four passes for 126 yards and a score last week.
On the defensive side of the ball, FSU will look to build on a solid performance. Junior cornerback Jalen Ramsey is the player to watch for the Seminoles. Ramsey finished last week’s contest with four tackles and a pass break-up. Senior Terrance Smith is perhaps the most experienced player on defense. Smith, who leads a very thin corps of linebackers, was tied for a team-high with seven total stops last week.
Senior safety Jamie Byrd leads a USF defense that gave up fewer than 200 yards of offense to the Rattlers last week. In front of him, junior linebacker Nigel Harris is one of the best at stopping the run in the American Athletic Conference.
If there was an area where FSU struggled a week ago, it was on special teams. All-American placekicker Roberto Aguayo made good on his only field goal attempt, but the Seminoles muffed a pair of punts and senior Cason Beatty averaged just over 36 yards-per-punt. Those are all areas FSU can get shored up this week.
The meeting between the Bulls and Seminoles on Saturday will be just the third ever with the road team winning each of the previous two contests. South Florida stunned FSU 17-7 in Tallahassee in September of 2009 and the Seminoles returned the favor with a 30-17 victory in September of 2012 at Raymond James Stadium. Since the start of 2012, FSU has the best record in college football at 40-3 while USF is just 10-27 over that stretch.
Saturday’s contest will be the final one before FSU begins a stretch of eight straight ACC games. South Florida has not knocked off an ACC team since 2010.
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