ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -Once Memphis climbed from an early-season hole and began creeping toward bowl eligibility, coach Tommy West allowed himself to start thinking about how nice it would be to finish the season with a trip to Florida.
The prospect of spending a few days in gorgeous weather was just part of the appeal of the inaugural St. Petersburg Bowl, where the Tigers (6-6) landed after winning six of nine games following an 0-3 start.
West also liked the idea of facing an opponent from a BCS league and views Saturday’s matchup against one-time Conference USA rival South Florida as a nice opportunity to gauge where his program stands.
USF (7-5) left C-USA for the Big East in 2005 and hasn’t looked back. Although the Bulls stumbled badly after starting 5-0 and climbing into the Top 10, they’re in a bowl game for the fourth straight year and believe they have a promising future.
“To have a chance to play South Florida, one of the three that left our league and went in the Big East, I’m not going to act like that’s unimportant,” West said.
ied for this bowl. Outside of our champion, which plays an SEC team, this is the only other opportunity to play a BCS opponent. When you’re not in the BCS it’s a big deal because that’s where we want to be.”
The Tigers and Bulls played four consecutive seasons from 2001-04, the last two as members of C-USA. Each team won twice, with Memphis winning the most recent meeting 31-15 with former Tigers star DeAngelo Williams rushing for a school-record 263 yards.
Memphis is 0-2 this year against opponents from BCS conferences, losing 41-24 at Mississippi in the season opener and falling 35-28 at home to Louisville, another former C-USA rival that jumped to the Big East.
“I’m sure their guys look at this as a statement game for them,” said South Florida quarterback Matt Grothe.
It’s a role, USF was familiar with until 2007, when the Bulls ranked as high as No. 2 in the country before faltering down the stretch. The success heightened expectations for this season, which unraveled after a home loss to Pittsburgh.
Injuries were a factor, but Grothe said that wasn’t the only reason for the slide that left them in a bowl game just 32 miles from USF’s main campus in Tampa.
e Bulls’ leading rusher. “It caught up to us.”
Memphis expected to be better, too, after losing in last year’s New Orleans Bowl to finish 7-6. When the Tigers started with losses to Ole Miss, Rice and Marshall, West wasn’t sure what to make of his team.
“We’ve had a crazy year,” said West, who has the Tigers in a bowl game for the fifth time in the last six seasons.
One of the reasons is a potent offense featuring Curtis Steele, who’s rushed for 1,175 yards – the fourth-highest single-season total in school history.
“There were 12 teams that started 0-3 and only one of them got to a bowl, so our kids did a great job of rallying up and keeping their focus,” West said. “But coming into the year, I thought we had a pretty good team. We did some crazy things early and gave a couple of games away. … But once we got it going, we played pretty well.”
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