FAU replied with a 35-yard field goal, cutting the lead to four. USF attempted a kick of its own the following drive, but kicker Nico Gramatica\u2019s<\/a> 43-yarder sailed wide right.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n USF scored twice in the second quarter, Brown throwing his first touchdown pass of the night to tight end Jonathan Echols.<\/a> Half of the sophomores\u2019 eight career catches have been in the endzone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Punter Chase Leon<\/a> and the Bulls special teams lined up to kick the ball back to FAU, except Leon popped the ball right over the front line of the Owls kickoff unit. Wide receiver and dual-sport athlete JeyQuan Smith<\/a> used his track speed to recover the ball, giving USF back-to-back offensive possessions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI give a lot of credit to [Special Teams Coordinator] Chad Kramer again and [Assistant Coordinator] Tyler Majewski and those guys in the lab just working up ways to steal a possession, that was certainly a really positive way to do it,\u201d head coach Alex Golesh said during the postgame press conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n Seven plays later, USF\u2019s second consecutive drive ended as oddly as it began, with a goal line handoff to offensive lineman Cole Skinner<\/a>, for the 6-foot-5, 325 pounders second rushing touchdown in two weeks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe practice it all the time. It\u2019s just a fun time when we\u2019re out there,\u201d Skinner said. \u201cI\u2019ll take what I can get. I\u2019m extremely blessed that\u2019s for sure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A 28-yard field goal from FAU made the score 21-6 at halftime. Over 45,000 fans were in attendance for USF\u2019s largest homecoming turnout since 2009, and every one of them had more rushing yards at halftime than FAU. The Owls were held to 6 net rush yards in the first half.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n FAU finished the game with just 23 yards on the ground while USF had its fourth consecutive 250+ rush yard performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Owls set about the second half with its first touchdown of the night. Owls quarterback Cade Veltkamp\u2019s 3-yard shovel pass to tight end Micheal Kirch was his 14th of the season. No other quarterback in the American Conference has thrown for more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n That touchdown proved to be FAU\u2019s last as well. USF went on to score 27 unanswered points.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n After another Gramatica kick made the score 24-13, USF\u2019s next score came when tight end Wyatt Sullivan<\/a> took a dump off pass down the right sideline. The FAU transfer dragged a defender with him into the endzone for his first touchdown donning green and gold.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A 60\u2013yard catch by wide receiver Jereimah Koger<\/a>, a 2-yard run from running back NyKahi Davenport<\/a>, and Gramatica\u2019s second field goal brought the final score to 48-13.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Koger did not catch a pass in his first four games, but has since burst onto the scene, recording four catches for 75 or more yards in each of his last three.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s just so competitive, smart, resilient, tough, we got to keep recruiting Jeremiah Kogers,\u201d Golesh said. \u201cHe don\u2019t even know how good he can be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n USF\u2019s sixth win of the season marks the third straight bowl-eligible season under coach Golesh. The third-year coach and the rest of his team, however, are reaching for higher aspirations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if a single young guy in that locker room gives one heck about being bowl eligible,\u201d Golesh said. \u201cI said it two years ago, I said it last year, that\u2019s not the standard here, it\u2019ll never be the standard here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n USF will attempt to raise that standard when they travel to Memphis University on Oct. 25. A win would firmly position the Bulls as the favorite to win the American Conference.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The game will be nationally televised on ESPN at noon.<\/p>\n
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Written by: Dominic Feo<\/a> on October 20, 2025.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bulls have secured their third straight bowl game in three years under head coach Alex Golesh. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-13346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}