If you really think that the football teams from South Florida and the Ohio State University are the best two teams in all of college football, you need to get your head checked for bumps. After tonight, one of those teams will drop to the latter half of the top 10 where they belong.

South Florida will lose at Rutgers tonight. Mark it down.

I like this story as much as the next guy. I thought it was cute when the Bulls went to Auburn and beat the tragically offensively challenged Tigers. I was relieved when Jim Leavitt and Co. rocked the vastly overrated Mountaineers of West Virginia. But enough is enough. I, in no way, shape, or form, want to be watching USF play for the National Championship (ditto for Ohio State).

This game will come down to defense. If USF is able to shut down Ray Rice like they shut down UCF’s Kevin Smith, then it’s up to Rutgers’ much-improved quarterback Mike Teel  and underrated receiver tandem of Tiquan Underwood and Kenny Britt to win the game for the Knights.

The real question of the game is will Greg Schiano’s defense be able to slow down Matt  Grothe, who has two consecutive 100-yard games to his credit. Pass rushing has been Rutgers forté in recent years but taking advantage of over-aggressive defensive ends and blitzing outside linebackers is what Grothe does best. Rutgers will need to play a near-perfect game defensively to win this one.

Make no mistake, USF hasn’t played in an environment this hostile all year. Yes, they went to Auburn and won but that stadium was asleep. They weren’t jacked up for that game the way those fans in Piscataway are already jacked up for tonight’s game.

It’ll be close but I’m taking Greg Schiano and Rutgers, he has a way of getting his team and his campus pumped for the big ones.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 7:24 am and is filed under College Football, Rutgers, USF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.