Notebook: USF stays put at No. 18 in AP Top-25

USF has appeared in 10 straight AP Top-25 polls dating back to last season.

Despite defeating East Carolina 61-31 and remaining undefeated at 5-0 Saturday, USF stayed put at No. 18 in the Associated Press (AP) Top-25 poll for the second week in a row.

The weekly poll is determined by a points system based on how each voter ranks college football's best teams. A team receives 25 points for each first-place vote, 24 for second place and so on through to the 25th team, which receives one point.

Though the Bulls didn’t budge in their Week 5 ranking, all but one of the 61 AP voters had the Bulls inside their Top-25 — an improvement from the Week 4 poll, when five voters left the Bulls off their ballots.

The lone voter to leave USF out of the Top-25 was Andy Bitter, who covers Virginia Tech football for The Roanoke (Virginia) Times.

His reasoning: The Bulls allowing 31 points to East Carolina wasn't impressive.

“I'm still not feeling it with the Bulls,” Bitter said Sunday. “They beat ECU 61-31, but that's a lot of points to give up to a Pirates team that's been horrible.”

Bitter’s ballot had Clemson as the No. 1 team in the nation and he ranked UCF No. 25. At No. 18, where USF is ranked in the cumulative poll, he ranked Notre Dame.

The Bulls’ highest voters in the Week 5 poll were Bob Asmussen, who covers Illinois football, and Gary Horowitz, a columnist for the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon. They both ranked USF as the No. 13 team in the nation.

Homecoming game kickoff time announced

After a bye week, USF will host Cincinnati at Raymond James Stadium on

Oct. 14, for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff in the Bulls’ homecoming game.

Originally scheduled to face UMass for homecoming, USF is facing the Bearcats due to a schedule realignment forced by Hurricane Irma. The game against UMass, originally scheduled for Oct. 14, was canceled and will not be made up.

This will be the Bulls’ third home night game of the season, but will be the first one played on a Saturday in 2017.

Men’s golf drops in Day 2 of Marquette Intercollegiate

After one round of play, USF led all 15 schools at the Marquette Intercollegiate at Erin Hills, shooting an even par.

After the second round Monday, however, the Bulls dropped to sixth place with a team score of plus-14.  

USF’s Cristian DiMarco, who was in first place individually after Round 1, dropped to fifth place. Claudio Correa, who was in fourth place after round one, dropped one spot and is tied with DiMarco and three other golfers at even par.

USF will finish the tournament Tuesday afternoon. In order to win, the Bulls will have to catch Texas A&M and Purdue, who are in first and second place with scores plus-4 and plus-5. The tournaments third and final round will be played Tuesday.

 

The team leaderboard through two rounds at Erin Hills.