It is fitting in the event of such a humiliating defeat as a 55-35 at the hands of FSU to zoom into the math and see if it can be determined what went wrong. The Seminoles had proven themselves beatable the week before, a 63-20 beat
down of epic proportions. Even with the inevitable chip on their shoulder and world class talent, USF should have made a better go of it considering the Seminoles’ big loss was at the hands of a recent conference rival in Louisville.
The most glaring stat from USF’s tilt with FSU, aside from the score, was an eye popping 647 total yards of offense by the Seminoles. Freshman quarterback, Deondre Francois, only passed for 169 yards and a touchdown against the Bulls. That means the Bulls allowed 478 yards of rushing, an extremely large number for an opponent not relying strictly on an option offense.
Of those 478 yards rushing, 268 went to junior running back, Dalvin Cook. This, in itself, is also a disturbing fact, considering Cook has never put up numbers like this against anyone else. In 2014 as a freshman, Cook averaged 77 yards per game. As a sophomore, he’d doubled that to 140 yards per game. This, his third season with the Seminoles, he is averaging just 123 yards per game.
On Saturday, USF gave Cook twice his season average yards per game.
The matchup with the Bulls was a career high day for Cook. The personal record he broke was 267 yards, which he rang up against USF, last season. The only other opponent to allow 200 yards to Cook was Miami, last year. The Hurricanes allowed him 222 yards.
From a statistical analysis perspective, the two games against USF could be treated as outliers, being way above the mean. Removing those two games drops Cook’s average per game in 2015 to just under 130 yards per game and this season’s average to a very human 76 yards per game. Although Cook has played in four games this season, more than half of his yardage came courtesy of USF.
This is a possible cause for concern for the Bulls, considering run defense was a particular area of strength in 2015. USF’s defense allowed an average of just 140 yards per game on the ground, last season, including Cook’s yardage. The only other time the Bulls allowed more than 170 yards to an opponent rushing the ball was when they lost to Navy, who runs a strict option offense, consisting of nearly all running plays.
Cook was not the only Seminole to have a good game against USF. Another 200 yards was allowed to sophomore running back, Jacques Patrick, and freshman quarterback, Deondre Francois. Patrick’s total, was the second highest yardage he has had in a game. His career high is 162 yards, which came against Syracuse, last season. His career total rushing yardage 545 yards on around 100 carries. Francois has just 97 rushing yards this season, 75 of which came against USF.