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USF, McClain Roll To First Win of the Season
- Updated: September 19, 2021
The USF football team (1-2) posted its first win of the 2021 campaign with a 38-17 defeat of Florida A&M (1-2) at Raymond James Stadium Saturday night.
“It feels good to get up here after a victory. It’s been a long time. I told the players after the game that I was really proud,” head coach Jeff Scott said. “We’ve been through a lot of things. The natural thing when you go through this much adversity, between last year and this year, is to split up and divide. Our guys have not done that. They’ve stuck together. They’ve continued to work hard and have shown up each and every day. They’re continuing to move forward. We talk a lot about grit, which is continuing to move forward in the face of adversity. The guys have done that.”
Freshman quarterback Timmy McClain made his first start and promptly logged the Bulls’ longest run of the season to that point with a 27-yard scamper and then hit Xavier Weaver with a 31-yard completion. The first drive stalled at the FAMU 5-yard line, as the Bulls turned the ball over on a McClain fumble, but the offense was clicking early.
McClain would go on to complete 12 of 23 passes for 163 yards and a touchdown and run for 51 yards on the night before giving way to freshman Katravis Marsh, who started the fourth quarter with the Bulls leading 31-10. McClain led five scoring drives, including touchdown drives of 75 and 87 yards.
“He (McClain) did a good job this week,” Scott said. “There’s times tonight he made some really nice plays and there’s times where he looked like a freshman. That’s part of it. I’ve coached freshman quarterbacks before and this is the first time he’s ever started a game and I think he definitely does some things that can help us offensively. He’s still got a lot of things to clean up. I think that’s the exciting part about him is he’s got a lot of room to grow.”
USF compiled 404 yards of offense, including 241 on the ground led by freshman Brian Battie’s 110 yards on 10 carries. Sophomore Xavier Weaver led the Bulls with career-bests of five receptions for 77 yards and Jaren Mangham logged three rushing touchdowns, the most in a game for a Bull since 2018. He now had five on the season, also the most for a USF player since 2018.
After the teams traded 49-yard field goals in the first quarter, including the Bulls’ Spencer Shrader equaling a career long, McClain guided USF 75 yards in eight plays, including a 40-yard completion to Latrell Williams, for the first touchdown of the game on a 1-yard Mangham plunge.
The defense forced its third three-and-out to that point and McClain led the Bulls 49-yards for a touchdown capped by a 9-yard touchdown strike to Weaver. USF led 17-3 and had over 200 yards of offense early in the second quarter.
As the defense continued to stymie FAMU, a nice 29-yard punt return by Weaver set the Bulls up on the Rattlers’ 26. USF marched to the endzone in seven plays as Mangham collected his second touchdown of the night on a 4-yard run to make it 24-3.
The Bulls defense held FAMU to -7 yards rushing and 0-for-8 on third down chances in the first half as USF outgained the Rattlers 247-109 in the first 30 minutes.
The Rattlers closed the margin with a 33-yard touchdown run by Terrell Jennings late in the third quarter, but USF answered with a six-play, 87-yard touchdown drive that featured a career-best 42-yard run by Battie and Mangham’s third rushing touchdown of the game, this one from nine yards out to make it 31-10.
FAMU scored a late touchdown after getting the ball at the USF 20 following an unnecessary roughness penalty on the Rattlers’ punt return. The Bulls ended the scoring with a short 14-yard drive after taking over on downs deep in FAMU territory. Yasias Young capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown plunge.
The Bulls were led defensively on the night by Matthew Hills’ eight tackles and two tackles for loss and five tackles by linebacker Demaurez Bellamy.
USF hits the road for the second time this season when the Bulls head to BYU for a 10:15 ET kick next Saturday at 63,725-seat LaVell Edwards Stadium.
