2021 Preview: Can Jeff Scott Mimic The Clemson Culture At USF?
Year one is in the books. Let's put it away and never look at it again.
ICYMI: This is a part of The Outside Zone’s full 2021 G5 preview series, which last looked at Charlotte. You can find a master list for all of the previews here.
I’m going to commit a college football cardinal sin here, right at the beginning of this preview. I’m going to compare a team to its rival.
In fact, I’m going to very strongly insinuate that one member of a rivalry saw something that the other member was doing, and made a hire specifically in an attempt to recreate it for itself.
What I’m saying is that USF saw UCF develop a strong culture under Scott Frost before passing that culture off to Josh Heupel who pretty much just kept the ball rolling and tried not to fuck anything up (he mostly didn’t!) and USF decided that it wanted that for itself. It wanted to establish a long-term program culture, a sustainable approach to winning football games that it lacked even when it was winning football games under Willie Taggart before he left for Oregon.
So, it went to the culture capital of college football and hired Clemson offensive coordinator Jeff Scott away from one of the best-run and most well-oiled football machines in the country. The guiding principle is obvious: USF hired Scott to build this program in Clemson’s image and is hoping to give him as much time and power as he needs to do that.
It’s also making some much-needed investments into making that happen, including the long-awaited announcement of an indoor practice facility, which Taggart and former head coach Charlie Strong were both absolutely desperate for. That’s a crucial piece that almost certainly played a role in the original pitch to Scott, back when the idea of an indoor facility was likely just shared between the powers that be at the university. It doesn’t seem like it to fans, but getting that indoor facility is a huge deal for a program, especially one in southern Florida.
“There’s just something different for your current players when they walk into a team room that is really, really nice and put together and very professional,” Scott said. “All of a sudden the guys sit up a little bit straighter. They’re listening a little bit more because there’s a professional environment that they’re learning in.”
That’s all great. I like the idea behind hiring Scott, I like Scott, I love the new facility and I get what USF is building. There’s a clear vision here.
The issue with clear visions in college football specifically ties back into the old saying about getting punched in the mouth coined by Mike Tyson, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” So often in this sport, programs will lay out these extensive, sprawling plans for team growth under a new regime, start the process, lose for three seasons and then fire the coach and do it again. Patience is extremely limited at almost every job in America because this has become such a big money sport. When you lose at a serious rate early in your tenure, you probably aren’t going to get a shot at winning later on, because you’ll be on the first bus out of town.
For Scott’s sake, let’s hope that USF is the exception to that, because this is going to take a while. Scott inherited a USF program with at least a little talent, albeit mismatched talent, and a roster that had been completely mismanaged by his predecessor. This was one of the most lethargic and aimless teams in the country at the end of the Strong era and it cost him his job.
It’s costing Scott now too, at least in the short term. He hasn’t quite had to clear house, but USF spent last season looking for contributors it could trust, lost quite a few of them to the transfer portal and now has to start over again with only a few more answers than it had when Scott arrived last season. It’s the nature of a rebuild like this. So often a coach will have to tear down a program to its studs to rebuild it in his image, and if I’m being honest, there wasn’t a whole lot of that Strong program that fit into what Scott does. They’re two very, very different coaches and Scott isn’t going to be able to do his thing with Strong’s guys. They knew that, he knew that, and a lot of them left because of it.
That means that despite undergoing a bit of a youth movement last season, USF is still very young this year. It has a few bright spots, but for the most part, I think Scott is still in the process of tearing this thing down to get it built back up. We’re very much in a second-year, year-zero situation. It’s rare, but it happens.
What does that look like practically? Well, let’s start at quarterback. USF’s two primary QBs - Jordan McCloud and Noah Johnson - neither was particularly good, but both are gone, leaving USF with an extremely inexperienced group of in-house quarterbacks. To solve that problem, the Bulls went out and landed former Miami quarterback Jarren Williams in their 2021 class. Williams wasn’t great with Miami, but he’s instantly the most talented and experienced member of this room. Expect him to get the nod this season, with three-star freshman Timmy McClain as the future star waiting in the wings.
Williams (or any other starter) is going to have a pretty good core to surround them. Wide receivers Bryce Miller, Latrell Williams and Omarion Dollison all return after good seasons last year, while transfers Demarcus Gregory (Ole Miss), Yusuf Terry (Baylor) and Matthew Hill (Auburn) and three-star Jimmy Horn Jr. all join the fold.
All three of those returning receivers were awesome when the ball actually got to them last season, and may form the best returning receiver core in the conference if they’re all fully healthy. All three are sub-six-feet, so USF may be a bit vertically challenged, but they each play much bigger than they actually are.
Williams is probably the best at it. He’s the tallest of the bunch at 5-11, but he plays like he’s 6-4 or 6-5. It’s a whole lot of fun to watch.
The key for USF’s receivers is less about them and more about the signal caller. USF couldn’t throw down the field at all last season and made a point of working on that specifically entering 2021. I think these three can fit that style and make more plays down the field, the question will be more about the passer and and offensive line that returns almost everyone but gave up way too many sacks last season.
“That’s a big emphasis for us this spring - we have to get better throwing the deep ball,” Scott said. “I didn’t feel like we were consistent enough at quarterback or receiver last year throwing the ball down the field.”
When you’re inefficient throwing the deep ball, it makes it very, very difficult on your offense because the defense can really get that extra hat down there in the box to help with the run game and make it a long day.
“So our offense has to be explosive down the field with some of these deep shots, and a big part of that is going to be the timing and relationship between the quarterback and our (wideout).”
Then there’s the running back, home to my favorite player on this team. I love Kelley Joiner Jr. He’s tiny - just 5-9, 179 pounds - but he’s a freakishly quick runner that fits this offense beautifully. The comparison is easy to make because of his coach’s connection to Clemson, but smaller Travis Etienne feels like a fit here. Joiner is capable as a runner and a pass catcher and will be the focal point of the offense with Johnny Ford gone. He’ll split time with Brian Battie and Darrian Felix, but I would be stunned if Joiner isn’t a 1,000-yard rusher this season - he’s that good.
He’s also willing to do this, which isn’t germane to the point but makes me laugh regardless. If USF is anything on offense this season, it’ll be because of three main things. One, Joiner’s continued development into one of the AAC’s best backs. Two, Williams being a better version of the quarterback we saw at Miami. And three, the offensive line improving because of its continuity, giving Williams more time to find this talented receiving core. The pieces are here, they just need to fit together for Scott to have this offense really cooking with gas earlier than expected.
This is a Glenn Spencer defense, which means two things right off the bat as foundational, core tenets. Firstly, he’s only using three linemen on most plays. That’s been his thing for years, he seems most comfortable with the 3-3-5 and he’s going to continue using it at USF.
Secondly, Spencer isn’t much for blitzing. He’s content letting those three linemen provide the pressure while dropping eight into coverage, primarily zone. The idea is that his defense can create more turnovers by flustering the quarterback down the field than it can by getting in his face, while also providing a safer shell against the kind of explosive offenses that Spencer saw in the Big 12 and is seeing now in the American. It makes sense, even if it’s not always perfect.
It certainly wasn’t perfect in 2020 for USF. For starters, the defensive line was terrible. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. It was a group filled with guys suited to be defensive tackles - not pass rushers - and surprisingly enough, nobody could rush the passer. Because Spencer was so averse to blitzing, especially against passing teams like UCF, quarterbacks had all day to throw on this USF back eight.
Which brings us to the second point: when quarterbacks have all day, a good secondary is going to get into trouble. USF didn’t have a good secondary. It wasn’t bad, certainly - I liked Mike Hampton and K.J. Sails quite a bit at cornerback - but quarterbacks were able to pick it apart because they had so goddamn long in the backfield.
That brings us to the issue of this season. Just about every member of that horrible defensive front returns, while Hampton, Sails and a pair of safeties (Bentlee Sanders and Nick Roberts) depart from the secondary, which is probably the most depleted group on the entire roster. USF returns just about the exact opposite of who it would want to return when looking at production in 2020. Just about every linebacker returns too, which is… neutral? I guess? But the major concern here is going to be replacing that production in the backfield while finding some way to improve up front.
We’ll get to that second note in a moment, but on that first part, USF seems to have an answer it’s comfortable with, or at least the answer that it settled on. The Bulls hit the portal hard and pulled in Christian Williams from Miami and Will Jones from Kansas State. Both are very talented corners, and while it’s always risky to go with transfer starters in the secondary, I like them better than just about anything else on this roster. Cornerback Daquan Evans might be solid and looked good in spots last year, but behind him is a whole lot of developmental guys. Finding consistent safety play is going to be a complete crapshoot, too.
On the front, we have to assume that USF is going to improve at least a bit, because it can’t get much worse, though I don’t think these guys are ever going to be good pass rushers. If USF wants to get to the quarterback it will need to send more than three tackles after him. The point of improvement would be more focused on run defense, which USF was also terrible at last season. You’d think that size up front would help, but it certainly didn’t in 2020.
If the USF defense does manage to find some improvement up front, it should get better as a whole. Again, it’s harder to get much worse. Cutting back on the big plays, forcing a few more turnovers and not missing on so many open-field tackles would go a long way toward helping what should be a pretty encouraging offense this season.
Still, USF is nowhere near where it wants to be under Scott’s tutelage. It’s going to take a while. The recruiting has been good, he seems to be building that Clemson-esque culture - though he needs to start holding onto his assistants if he wants to be Dabo Swinney - and I get the idea of what USF is going for. I just don’t think that this season is anything more than a second year-zero situation, making 2020 some sort of bizarre year-negative one. Scott can get this cooking, but he probably isn’t going to see a ton of tangible improvement this year. That’s fine. Look for player growth, fundamental play improvement and any potential budding stars to build around, while aiming for bowl bid contention in year three, eight wins in year four and AAC contention in year five. That’s the blueprint.