Grothe throws for 236 yards, three TDs as South Florida dominates Memphis

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• South Florida Tops Memphis In St. Petersberg Bowl

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Bowl Overview

It was over when... USF got on the bus (not plane) to play in what was essentially an extra home game -- and an easy one at that. Gameball goes to... Matt Grothe, who threw for 236 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 82 more yards. Stat of the game... 10,214. Grothe surpassed Pat White (for now) as the Big East's all-time leader in offensive production with over 10,000 yards for his career. Complete Bowl Overview

Team Stat Comparison
1st Downs	15	29
Total Yards	238	496
Passing	172	264
Rushing	66	232
Penalties	3-25	7-70
3rd Down Conversions	5-15	7-13
4th Down Conversions	0-2	0-1
Turnovers	0	1
Possession	25:16	34:44

Air/Ground Leaders
Memphis Passing   C/ATT YDS TD INT Hall 15/31 154 1 0 Toney 3/3 18 0 0	South Florida Passing   C/ATT YDS TD INT Grothe 17/24 236 3 0 Gregory 2/5 14 0 0
Memphis Rushing   CAR YDS TD LG Steele 12 48 0 13 Ross 7 11 0 6	South Florida Rushing   CAR YDS TD LG Grothe 15 83 0 32 Ford 8 34 0 25
Memphis Receiving   REC YDS TD LG Steele 1 49 0 6 Calhoun 6 39 1 11	South Florida Receiving   REC YDS TD LG Mitchell 4 60 0 19 Bogan 3 51 1 24

Scoring Summary
FIRST QUARTER				MEM	USF
	TD	13:58	Taurus Johnson 26 Yd Pass From Matt Grothe (Maikon Bonani Kick)	0	7
	TD	04:28	Benjamin Williams 3 Yd Run (Maikon Bonani Kick)	0	14
	TD	02:09	Arkelon Hall 3 Yd Run (Matt Reagan Kick)	7	14
SECOND QUARTER				MEM	USF
	FG	11:18	Maikon Bonani 23 Yd	7	17
	TD	04:15	Ben Busbee 13 Yd Pass From Matt Grothe (Maikon Bonani Kick)	7	24
	TD	00:08	Duke Calhoun 2 Yd Pass From Arkelon Hall (Matt Reagan Kick)	14	24
THIRD QUARTER				MEM	USF
	FG	08:36	Maikon Bonani 37 Yd	14	27
	TD	01:50	Dontavia Bogan 24 Yd Pass From Matt Grothe (Maikon Bonani Kick)	14	34
FOURTH QUARTER				MEM	USF
	TD	12:40	Moise Plancher 2 Yd Run (Maikon Bonani Kick)	14	41

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Matt Grothe and South Florida didn't have a problem getting motivated for what amounted to an extra home game. After floundering the second half of the season, the magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl gave them a chance to feel good about themselves again.

Fast Facts

• South Florida leads the all-time series against Memphis 3-2.

• The Bulls have made a bowl game the last four seasons, which is every year they've been in the Big East, with this being their second win.

• After starting the season 5-0 against non-conference opponents, South Florida went 2-5 against conference opponents.

• Of the 12 teams to start the season 0-3, Memphis and Rutgers are the only schools that qualified for bowl games with six wins.

-- ESPN research

"I think the last few weeks we were trying so hard to win a game that we forgot how to play football," Grothe said after throwing for 236 yards and three touchdowns on the way to a 41-14 rout of Memphis on Saturday.

The junior quarterback moved ahead of West Virginia's Pat White as the Big East's career total offense leader, also rushing for 83 yards on 15 carries to earn the most outstanding player award.

Grothe and White, a senior who will finish his season in the Meineke Bowl on Dec. 27, are the only players in league history to amass more than 10,000 yards total offense. White has 10,142 in 49 games, and Grothe finished the night with 10,242 in 39 games.

"Its easy to get away from (playing the way he expects to play) and easy to lose focus whenever we get down," Grothe said. "In my opinion, whenever ... we can just go out and play football and not worry about what people are saying, then we do well."

USF (8-5) scored on four of its first five possessions to build a 24-14 halftime lead, forcing Memphis (6-7) to play catch-up and essentially taking 1,000-yard rusher Curtis Steele out of the Tigers' game plan.

"The bottom line was we couldn't tackle the quarterback," Memphis coach Tommy West said. "They beat us pretty good on both sides of the ball."

Arkelon Hall threw for one TD and ran for another, however Steele was held to 48 yards rushing on 12 attempts by a stout run defense determined to redeem itself this postseason after giving up 253 yards to Oregon's Jonathan Stewart during USF's lopsided loss in last year's Sun Bowl.

Grothe threw TD passes of 26 yards to Taurus Johnson, 13 to Ben Busbee and 24 to Dontavia Bogan before being replaced by Grant Gregory with USF leading 34-14 late in the third quarter.

Hall, meanwhile, was 15-of-31 for 154 yards and no interceptions, with much of that coming on a swing pass that Steele turned into a 50-yard gain early in the second half. He ran 3 yards for a first-quarter touchdown, then threw 2 yards to Duke Calhoun for the Tigers' other TD just before halftime.

It was the first meeting between the former Conference USA rivals since USF left that league for the Big East in 2005. The teams split four games between 2001 and 2004, and Memphis relished the challenge of facing an opponent from a BCS conference for the first time in five bowl appearances under coach Tommy West.

The Tigers, who won six of nine games to become bowl eligible after an 0-3 start, viewed Saturday as an opportunity to gauge how much they've progressed toward a goal of having a BCS-caliber program.

On this day, they were nowhere close to a South Florida team that began the season with high expectations after being ranked as high as No. 2 by the Associated Press in 2007. The Bulls won their first five before stumbling badly in the Big East and winding up in a bowl game just 32 miles from USF's main campus in Tampa.

Tropicana Field in downtown St. Petersburg is close enough that coach Jim Leavitt and his players bused from the team hotel back to campus for practice all week, truly making it seem like an extra home game rather than a bowl trip.

"Our guys did a great job of getting us to this stage. We've got some work to do to belong on this stage," West said, adding that the Tigers were not fast enough or physical enough to keep pace with the Bulls.

Memphis fell to 0-3 against opponents from BCS conferences this season and is 2-13 since 2001.

"We're pretty good at throwing it and catching it. But when you're a non-BCS team playing a BCS team, to play on that stage you have to match what they do, and you have to get more physical," West said. "You could see today why they're a BCS team and we're not."