Revved-up offense helps prepare defense

Posted Aug 5, 2011 by Adam Adkins

Updated Aug 5, 2011 at 05:21 PM

Here is Friday’s practice report from Tribune correspondent Michael Manganello:

Without the burden of having to install a new system this fall, USF head Skip Holtz and staff have instead focused on revving up the offensive tempo.

The Bulls will have to contend with fast-paced offenses in Pittsburgh and West Virginia this season, so to better prepare the defense, the offense has been moving quickly through the first two practices of fall camp.

“What we’re trying to do is prepare them, as much as anything, for what they’re going to see during the course of the season,” Holtz said. “I would expect that we’re going to get some of that at Notre Dame, but I know playing (new Pittsburgh coach) Todd Graham and (new West Virginia coach) Dana Holgorsen, playing Tulsa and Houston the last couple of years, I know the pace we’re going to get and we need to see it. You can’t get ready for that tempo in a game week. It’s always a lot easier to slow down than speed up.”

Defensive coordinator Mark Snyder places a high value on the preparation his defense receives from seeing a fast offense in camp.

“(The quick tempo) is great for conditioning, it forces you to shorten down your signals, it makes you think on your feet, it’s great for us,” Snyder said. “This league has changed a little bit and there’s going to be some more of those (fast offenses) in this league, so it’s really good for us on defense.”

GRIFFIN, LOVE PROVIDE BOOST: Though the wide receiver pair of A.J. Love and Sterling Griffin was able to participate in spring practice after missing last season due to injury, it was on a limited basis. With the opening of fall camp, all physical restrictions have been lifted, creating a deeper wide receiver corps than was available last season.

“(Griffin and myself being back) can only help,” Love said. “We had a lot of ‘misfits’ was the word I heard going around last year, but just having a guy like myself and Sterling come back with experience, size, speed or whatever, it’ll help the quarterbacks, it’ll help open things up for the running backs and just help in general.”

Griffin was a valuable asset as a true freshman in 2008, before an ankle injury cost him a year.

“It feels good (to be back),” Griffin said. “I got to work with a lot of my teammates over the summer, the quarterbacks, the receivers, getting our timing down and my confidence back.”

The return of the experienced veterans gives Holtz a new confidence in the depth at receiver.

“With having a Love and a Griffin to the equation and you can add a (Deonte) Welch in there and you throw a (Andre) Davis and a (Ruben) Gonzalez in there and all of a sudden, you’re four-deep at a position,” Holtz said. “I think that’s helping us right now, it’s creating great competition but having the experience, maturity and the talent of a Love and a Griffin is invaluable right now.”

HOLTZ VOTES FOR BULLS: Holtz, one of 59 FBS head coaches voting in the USA Today Coaches Poll this year, said he placed USF in his preseason Top 25, though he couldn’t recall where he ranked the Bulls.

“We were an also-ran,” Holtz said of his rankings. “It’s not like I put us top ten or anywhere along those lines.”