No. 23 USF rallies to beat Tulsa 25-24 to remain unbeaten

TULSA, Okla. – Coby Weiss made a 22-yard field goal with 2 seconds left and No. 23 South Florida scored 15 points in the final 7:10 to beat Tulsa 25-24 on Friday night.

Blake Barnett set up the winning field goal with a 32-yard strike to Tyre McCants to the 5.

“The thing about him is that he is so strong and he is elusive,” USF coach Charlie Strong said about the 5-foot-11, 240-pound McCants. When you tackle him you’d better wrap up because he’s going to break away.”

USF was helped on the winning drive by a roughing-the-passer penalty on defensive end Trevis Gipson.

“I haven’t seen the play. And I’ve got to be real careful what I say,” Tulsa coach Philip Montgomery said.

Montgomery obviously wasn’t happy about the call.

“All I do know is that is a tough call right there in in that situation at that time in the game,” Montgomery said.

Barnett scored on 1- and 12-yard runs to pull the Bulls (6-0, 2-0 American Athletic Conference) within two with 2:10 to go, but was stopped on a two-point conversion run.

USF forced Tulsa (1-5, 0-3) into a three-and-out, giving the Bulls the ball back with 1:03 remaining on their own 43 with no timeouts left.

“It was great that we were able to pull this game out when we have a national audience when a lot of people were able to see us,” Strong said.

Weiss won the kicking job just before the season started.

“I told our guys, we didn’t know who our kicker was, but we know he is now,” Strong said.

Jordan Cronkrite, who set a USF and AAC record with 302 yards last week at UMass, rushed for 151 yards on 25 carries. But outside of a 66-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter that evened it at 10, Cronkrite didn’t do a lot of damage.

Sharmari Brooks ran for 100 yards on 28 carries for Tulsa. He had two 10-yard scoring runs in the third quarter to put the Golden Hurricane up 24-10.

Barnett completed 17 of 39 passes for 237 yards.

Tulsa’s Seth Boomer was 6 of 21 for 71 yards.

The takeaway

Tulsa almost won the game due to not turning the ball over, combined with a strong defense. Coming into the game, Tulsa ranked last in FBS in turnovers and turnovers per game, and sixth-to-last in turnover margin.

Poll implications

South Florida would have almost certainly dropped out of the Top 25 after losing to a Tulsa team that had not won a FBS game all season.

Up next

USF: Hosts UConn on Oct. 20.

Tulsa: At Arkansas on Oct. 20.