Bye week advantageous, particularly for youngsters

Posted Sep 21, 2010 by Adam Adkins

Updated Sep 21, 2010 at 02:55 PM

USF coach Skip Holtz spoke at length during Tuesday’s press conference how the bye week was advantageous for his football team, particularly for many of the younger players on the roster.

Among those drawing praise for utilizing their time well were receivers Stephen Bravo-Brown and Faron Hornes, tight end Andreas Shields, fullback Isaac Virgin, defensive lineman Ryne Giddins, linebackers Sam Barrington, Mike Lanaris and DeDe Lattimore and defensive backs Mark Joyce and Terrence Mitchell.

“When you as coaches, when you decide to play a young player, you put him in and say, ‘Boy if we can start to get him some reps and work him in early, he’s got a chance to be a pretty good player by the time we get to the conference (portion of the schedule).’ And a lot of these young players I thought last week was really productive, and I know from my standpoint and a lot of the assistant coaches standpoint, it starts to give you a little more confidence to put him in there in a game-type atmosphere and to put them in a little bit more bigger role,” the coach said.

Bravo-Brown, the true freshman walk-on, could see his work this past week pay big dividends. He is in line to make his first collegiate start should senior Dontavia Bogan not be able to play against Western Kentucky.

Holtz would not rule out Bogan, sidelined since injuring his ankle against Florida, from playing in Saturday’s game, but said he needed to be on the field and practicing either today or Wednesday to maintain his place in this week’s starting lineup and on the field by Thursday is he’s going to suit up against the Hilltoppers.

I’ll have some more tidbits from the press conference, and a few other things, later today.