What they're saying about USF's opener ...

Should have gotten these up earlier, but want to clear out the links for the weekend before Monday, which is a holiday but should generate a headline or two as Jim Leavitt and George O'Leary both have conference calls with the media. Both sides have behaved very politely thus far, lobbing praise at each other and saying nothing but nice things. We'll see ...

-- First, from my own paper. The follow notes for Monday's paper start with offensive coordinator Greg Gregory saying that the intent was never to run up the score on UCF last year, even as the Bulls backup quarterbacks passed for three fourth-quarter touchdowns after taking a 33-point lead into the fourth. If you haven't already read Sunday's coverage, here's the game story, notebook and Joe Rienzi's sidebar on punt returner Marcus Edwards.

-- More game coverage: Here's game stories aplenty, from the Lakeland Ledger's Tom Zebold, the Bradenton Herald's Ryan Boyd, the Fort Myers News-Press' Jeff Berlinicke, and the Sarasota Herald Tribune's Alan Dell.

-- Didn't get to see the game in person or on TV? ESPN.com has highlights of the game's biggest plays, or at least some of them. And ESPN.com Big East blogger Brian Bennett has his thoughts on the opening weekend, saying USF could be "scary good." Louisville, meanwhile, is looking scary bad. Two points? Against Kentucky? It's not like they're Bowling Green or something ...

-- Completely unrelated to USF, but my favorite story of the weekend was how the guys who were supposed to parachute into North Carolina's opener with a game ball inadvertently landed eight miles away at Duke, surprising players on the field an hour before kickoff.

-- The Orlando Sentinel's David Whitley takes UCF to task for struggling with South Carolina State -- remember, that's where d-line coach John Hendrick was defensive coordinator last year. The Daytona Beach News-Journal's UCF game story managed to get the word "dull" in a headline, something you don't see often on the opening weekend of college football.

Comments

[Don Corleone]

I was at the game Saturday, and USF looked very impressive. I watched the replay on Catch 47 last night and came away more impressed. My standouts were Marcus Edwards, AJ Love, Moises Plancher, and Justin Teachey. The other player are obvious, but all of Teachey’s kicks except reached the goal line or deeper except one. That field position will be huge with this defense.

[RR]

Greg,

Was the "heat-seeking missle" wedge buster I saw on most of the kickoff's Shawn Cannon? It looked like #24...man, he had no regard for his own body, taking out three & four from the wedge every time.

Nicely done!