USF’s season keeps drifting further from the standard Alex Golesh built, and Thursday night’s 52-41 loss to Memphis in Tampa made that harder to ignore.
The Bulls have now dropped four of their last six, and the offense that was supposed to carry them under Brian Hartline has been stuck in the mud for much of the year. Heading into Thursday, USF ranked near the bottom of the FBS in yards per game. The 552 total yards against Memphis will help the numbers, but it doesn’t erase how rough this attack has looked at times - including the 27 points it managed combined against Temple and Bowling Green in back-to-back weeks earlier this season.
There’s also no hiding how much this roster misses the players who were around before. It would be dishonest to pretend USF isn’t wishing Byrum Brown, Keshaun Singleton, Chas Nimrod, Jeremiah Koger, and the rest were still in the mix.
Michael Van Buren Jr. and Luke Kromenhoek have had a hard time getting the offense rolling, and the defense had been doing enough to cover for it most of the season. That wasn’t the case against Memphis.
Even with the slide, USF is still bowl-eligible under Hartline. But the Bulls are nowhere close to the top of the American Conference, and Florida Atlantic and Tulane are still left on the schedule. A 7-5 finish is there for the taking.
That would still be better than Golesh’s first two seasons at USF, but it would also feel like a step backward from where this team was supposed to be. Golesh had already pushed the program further along than this, and with the school’s conference realignment goals in mind, this season has to be viewed as a failure.
The tension between Hartline and Golesh has been there since the summer, when Hartline made comments that landed as a shot at Golesh’s three-year run in Tampa.
“There was some success here the last couple of years, but nowhere near where it should be,” Hartline said.
Golesh didn’t answer through the media. He answered on the field. And while the offense has been a grind at times, Joel Gordon’s unit has still done enough to win three games in the SEC, including the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry upset over Georgia in October.
Golesh isn’t swapping his 5-4 record for Hartline’s 6-4 mark. Auburn is only getting started, while USF may be headed the other way after landing a master recruiter whose X’s and O’s haven’t matched.
In Other News...
Auburns Arizona Loss May Have Changed Steven Pearls Rotation
Auburns 80-69 loss to Arizona did more than snap the nations best non-conference home winning streak. It also may have nudged Steven Pearl toward a different look in his rotation, with Thomas Dowd leading the Tigers in scoring and minutes while Owen Freeman logged important run during the most meaningful stretches of the game. Even in defeat, Auburn found some individual bright spots, but the overall performance was uneven enough to raise questions about how the frontcourt minutes should be distributed moving forward.
Foul trouble and shooting issues made the night harder to sort out than a typical early-season setback, and Arizona took advantage of the openings. For Auburn, the bigger takeaway may be less about the final margin than about which combinations held up when the game tightened, and which ones did not. Pearl now has a little more evidence to weigh as the Tigers move ahead, especially if he wants a rotation that can better survive the kind of pressure Arizona brought to Neville Arena. [Read more 🡒]
Auburns Mississippi State Trip Just Got Tougher Before Early Kickoff
Auburns Week 11 trip to Mississippi State has turned into a little more of a grind than planned, with the Tigers set to bus to Starkville because of a nationwide FAA ground stop that has disrupted flights. The original plan called for the team to fly out of Columbus and then continue by bus from Tupelo, but the travel change adds another wrinkle to a road game already built around an early start.
Coach Alex Golesh addressed the challenge of getting his team ready for an 11 a.m. kickoff after an early morning ride, and for Auburn the focus now shifts to keeping the routine as normal as possible on a day that will not feel normal at all. There have been no indications the game will be postponed or canceled, so the Tigers are simply adjusting and moving forward with a tougher-than-expected travel day. [Read more 🡒]
Auburn Showed Real Promise But One Problem Will Follow This Team
Auburn left plenty to like in its 80-69 loss to No. 12 Arizona, even if the final score still sent the Tigers home with their first blemish of the season. The defense was active and disruptive, piling up 13 blocks and 12 steals, and the bench gave the team a real lift with 34 points, nearly half of Auburns total.
The problem was the kind that can undo good stretches against quality opponents: turnovers, fouls and missed free throws. Auburn showed it can defend and get production beyond the starters, but until the Tigers clean up the mistakes that kept giving Arizona extra chances, the margin for error against ranked teams will stay thin. [Read more 🡒]