NCAA Football | For USF nothing to lose and the world to gain at Florida State
TAMPA -- Willie Taggart knows about being the underdog.
It's a reason the USF head football coach is optimistic about taking his team to Tallahassee to face 10th ranked Florida State on Saturday morning.
USF is a 28-29 point underdog, but Taggart is no intimidated. He was on the staff at Stanford in 2007 when the 42 point underdog Cardinal beat the University of Southern California for the biggest upset (point spread wise) in college football history.
"I like our chances," Taggart said. "It's about us going out and competing against ourselves. We have to set our standards and live up to those standards and be the best team USF can be."
USF once had a reputation of beating the so called big boys with road victories against Auburn and FSU and then Notre Dame before the program fell into dire disarray under Skip Holtz.
Those USF teams played with a chip on their shoulder and Taggart, the former Manatee quarterback great, is trying to restore that attitude after two sub par seasons since taking over the program in 2013.
The Bulls dominated Florida A&M 51-3 last week forcing six straight three and outs and eight for the game in holding FAMU to 12 yards rushing and 182 yards total offense.
South Florida quarterback Quinton Flowers had some impressive moments during the game, but there were a lot of miscues the Bulls can't repeat if they hope to stay in this game, mainly from penalties and two bad snaps by center Brynjar Gudmundsson.
"We hammered on our guys that we can't have those mistakes, especially on the road," Taggart said. "It goes back to being disciplined, doing things just right, being locked in and controlling your emotions. If guys don't have the ball you can't hit them and if you are blocking the guy you can't hold onto them."
The Bulls have employed a 4-2-5 defense this season under new defensive coordinator Tom Allen. It will get its first real test going against all of FSU's weapons starting with Notre Dame graduate transfer Everett Golson at quarterback and running back Dalvin Cook.
"We're going up there with absolutely nothing to lose. We're going to let it rip," Allen said. "We are going to let it rip defensively and we're going to play our tails off for 60 minutes. We have nothing to lose and the world to gain, and that's going to be our attitude."
Golson threw for 302 yards and four touchdowns in his FSU debut last week against Texas State and Cook ran for 156 yards on 19 carries. The old USF teams had a swagger that's been missing for awhile.
"We saw some of the flashes of how things used to be around here (against FAMU)," Taggart said.
The coach wouldn't say whether he would use two quarterbacks as he did last week when senior backup Steven Bench came off the bench and was near flawless completing 8 of 10 passes for 140 yards and a touchdown. Flowers was 12-16 for 141 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 63 yards and a touchdown on seven carries.
Taggart and his players know the only thing similar about FAMU and FSU is that they reside in the same town.
"Our players need to show up and show out. We are on national TV early in the morning playing against a great opponent," Taggart said. "Don't be a hero just be Quinton Flowers and just be Steven Bench and Marlon Mack. We have plenty of guys good enough to compete. We just have to execute our plays."
USF honored former Bull Elkino Watson during a private memorial service at the Sun Dome on Tuesday night. He was killed early Sunday morning in fracas outside of a nightclub in Tampa's Ybor City when he was knifed.
"It was difficult, but it was moving at the same time. We are just going to play through Elkino and play as hard as we can," senior Jamie Byrd said.
The Bulls will honor Watson for the rest of the season with "EW" sticker on the back of their helmets.
This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "NCAA Football | For USF nothing to lose and the world to gain at Florida State."