Bulls Win in St. Pete
(December 21, 2008)

While the inaugural majicJack St. Petersburg Bowl may not have been the goal for the 2008 South Florida Bulls, there were advantages to playing the game just 32 miles from campus. The team could train at their own facility and, with just two weeks between the end of the regular season and the bowl game, those practices focused on the Memphis Tigers.

The bowl organizers did put on activities for the participating teams. There was beautiful weather for the “Beach Bash” that included a belly flop contest staring players from both teams. Other activities included a dinner cruise on the Gulf of Mexico.

Just minutes before kickoff, the Bulls unveiled white helmets which they wore for the first time. On the new headgear, head coach Jim Leavitt commented, “We've had 'em for a while; just looking for the right time to bring 'em out. If we lost we would never wear 'em again; so we thought we'd bring them out for the bowl game; and we won so they will be back again." It did not take USF long to get rolling, as Matt Grothe hit Taurus Johnson on a touchdown pass just 1:02 into the game. A Ben Williams TD made it 14-0 after the first quarter. A run by QB Arkelon Hall (15 of 31 for 154 yards with a TD) put Memphis on the board. Maikon Bonani kicked a field goal and Grothe hooked with Ben Busbee, before a Hall to Duke Calhoun pass made it 24-14 at the half. The Bulls would shutout Memphis after the break. Bonani added another field goal, Ben Busbee caught a TD and Moise Plancher ran for a score as the Bulls won 41-14.

While the USF offense amassed 496 total yards, the defense held Tigers running back Curtis Steele to 48 yards on the ground. Grothe (17 of 24 for 236 yards) threw three TD passes, rushed for 83 yards, caught a pass on a trick play and was named the games’s Most Outstanding Player. Grother said afterwards, "The biggest thing that motivated me was to go out and play football. The last few weeks of the season, we were trying so hard to win a game we forgot how to play football.”

Jim Leavitt discussed winning the first St. Petersburg Bowl, after winning the first PapaJohns.com Bowl two years earlier. "In the history of college football, how many teams will be able to someday say they won the inaugural bowl of two different bowls? Will that ever happen again in college football? Probably not, because I don't know if they'll keep having inaugural bowls."