TAMPA, FL. – College Football returned for both the No. 19 Wisconsin Badgers and the South Florida Bulls on Friday night but only one team had a sweet return. Jonathan Taylor started the game with a boom, on the 7th play of the Badgers first drive he took it to the house on a 37-yard run just four minutes in. The Bulls would try to respond but their first four drives would result in three punts and a lost fumble. The Badgers would take huge advantage of that and go up 21-0 in that span of time. Taylor cashing in two of those three touchdowns for the Bulls. USF seemed to shoot themselves in the foot the whole first half with turnovers, dropped passes and missed running lanes.
With 7:29 left in the second quarter there was a back and forth of turnovers. Blake Barnett’s pass for the Bulls was tipped and intercepted by Eric Burrell and returned to the Bulls’ 34-yard line. Wisconsin took the ball from there but on their second play tight end, Jake Ferguson, fumbled the ball after receiving a 5-yard pass. KJ Sails picked up the ball for the Bulls. That drive would start on their own 43 yard line but would only result in a 3-and-out. Before the half would end Jonathan Taylor snuck one more touchdown in. A 12-yard pass from Jack Coan that he would reach across the line as the clock expired made it 28-0.
It would be much of the same in the second half of the game. The Badgers’ first drive of the second half resulted in another Jonathan taylor touchdown, this time coming from the ground game. A 38-yard TD rush to cap off a 3 play, 69 yard drive in just 1:19.
Rinse and repeat for the rest of the football game. The Bulls’ ended their own game with penalties and miscues and a Wisconsin team of this stature is going to punish whoever is on the other side of the ball when that happens.
Jonathan Taylor would finish the game with 135 yards rushing, 48 yards receiving and 4 total touchdowns (2 rushing, 2 receiving). Jack Coan threw for 199 yards for the Badgers and two passing touchdowns. For the Bulls, quarterback Blake Barnett threw for 109 yards and two interceptions. The leading rusher for the Bulls was backup quarterback, Jordan McCloud with 17 yards total. McCloud came in during the fourth quarter to replace Barnett.
“It just shows you, we’ve got a lot of work (to do). We’ve still got a season in front of us and we just got to get ready.” said USF head coach Charlie Strong, “The thing I told our team just a few minutes ago is, ‘You don’t point fingers. Now, we’ve got to go back to work.’”
Wisconsin now moves on to play Central Michigan on Saturday, September 7th and USF takes on Georgia Tech also on Saturday, September 7th.
Written by Zach Bartkus
Image Credit: Manuel Deleon
