TAMPA, Fla. – Can you believe we have reached the end of the first month of the 2024 college football season? For USF, the final Saturday in September marks the beginning of American Conference play. And a vital opener (Noon/ESPNU) it will be as the Bulls make their way to New Orleans for a matchup against Tulane, which has appeared in the last two conference championship games and took home the title in 2022.
The Bulls (2-2) venture into what is hoped to be a positive start to the conference slate after having discovered much about themselves during a non-conference schedule that included setbacks to top 10 Alabama and Miami. The loss to the former was much, much closer than the 42-16 final as the Bulls trailed by five midway through the fourth quarter. Against the latter, USF led by a point at the two-minute timeout of the opening half before getting blown off the turf at Raymond James in the second half of a 50-15 defeat.
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“I am encouraged in a lot of ways by where we sit today in terms of being able to wipe it clean, understand where we left the non-conference (schedule) from a positive (standpoint),” said coach Alex Golesh. “You feel like you are battletested. You have kind of seen it all. You have been able to show examples of when we are at our best you are playing with the best teams in the country. When we are at our worst, it looks like the second half (against Miami) or it looks like the last 6:40 (at Alabama).”
Tulane, coached by Jon Sumrall, who went 23-5 with a pair of Sun Belt Conference titles in as many seasons at Troy before taking over the Green Wave, is also 2-2. Both losses were against upper-tier power conference teams: Kansas State (34-27) and Oklahoma (34-19). The Green Wave outgained (491-396) the visiting Wildcats and were tied heading into the fourth quarter. In Norman, they roared back from a 21-0 deficit to make it a five-point game late in third quarter.
Read: Bulls Beaten By Miami At Line Of Scrimmage; USF Students Showed Up Big Time
“They are very similar in terms of being battle-tested as well,” said Golesh. “They are really, really sound in what they do. Four games into (Sumrall’s) tenure, you can tell they have an identity on all three sides of the ball. It’s a well-coached football team.”
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