5 Thoughts ...
2008 magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl
South Florida 41 ... Memphis 14
GAME
REVIEW: Matt Grothe becomes Big East's all-time yardage leader
- 2008 CFN St.
Petersburg Bowl Preview
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2008 St. Petersburg
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1) It matters not
that the opponent was Memphis or
the title sponsor was magicJack.
South Florida needed
this game. After getting mauled
by Oregon in last years Sun Bowl
and floundering in November, the
Bulls had plenty to prove in St.
Petersburg. Although there’s no
way to recapture all of the lost
goodwill from a 2-5 regular
season finish, at least the
program can carry some momentum
into the offseason. Had USF
blown this game or even been
pushed as a two-touchdown
favorite, the climate around
next spring’s camp would have
been overwhelmingly negative. -
Richard Cirminiello
2) The St. Petersubrg Bowl and
the Big East has to work on the
matchup before next year. Fine,
it's only one bowl and it's only
one game at the beginning of the
bowl season, but as long as the
Big East can't improve its bowl
tie-ins, it had better be
winning these lousy matchups
41-14. That goes for Connecticut
in the International Bowl
against Buffalo, but at least
that's a game against a
conference champion. Memphis was
a mediocre team that had little
business being in a bowl game,
much less one against a team
from a BCS conference. USF
wasn't exactly a world-beater by
the end of the year, but if the
Big East is going to be playing
Conference USA teams in the
post-season, a game like this
doesn't do anyone any good.
Rice, who went 9-3, should've
been in this game instead of
playing Western Michigan in the
Texas Bowl. Tulsa, who lose the
Conference USa title game and
finished 10-3, shhould've been
here instead of playing Ball
State instead of the GMAC. -
Pete
Fiutak
3)
The nation saw how bad a sports
venue Tropicana Field is during
the baseball playoffs. Now,
America's football fans know
that the same stadium is an
equally awful football facility.
The turf caused some injuries
and stumbles, and it looked
horrible. The grounds crew did
something clever by painting the
portions of the end zone
touching the goal line and the
sides of the end zones, in order
to help officials make rulings.
But as well as the local
personnel did to make the field
aesthetically appealing, the end
product still stunk. -
Matthew
Zemek
4) At long last
there has been a Matt Grothe
sighting. It’s about time. After
being a microcosm for all of the
program’s problems in the second
half of the year, the junior
issued a reminder of how good he
can be when he’s on. He was
unusually crisp through the air,
throwing three touchdown passes
without a pick, while burning
Memphis for 83 yards on the
ground. He was in total control
of a game for the first time
since Syracuse was in Tampa two
months ago. If South Florida is
to get back to being a Big East
contender, it needs Grothe to
use his St. Pete’s Bowl
performance as a springboard
into 2009. -
Richard Cirminiello
2) If a Florida team isn't
playing in this game, which,
remember, is in a dome in late
December, will there be a draw?
Put this in an outdoor stadium,
and you'd have a reasonably
attractive bowl destination for
non-Florida schools.
As is, the game was played just
down the road from the USF
campus and just over 25,000 fans
showed up. Would the game bring
in that many fans if it was,
say, UConn in it? There are
worse places to be than Floirda
in the winter for a football
game. Now it'll be interesting
to see if it can become a
destianation that teams want to
go to. -
Matthew
Zemek