University of South Florida junior WR Carlton Mitchell, who suffered an ankle injury against West Virginia, was off crutches Wednesday but still wearing a protective boot.

The Gaither graduate has the luxury of the bye week to give his ankle more time to heal, but if he can’t play in the Nov. 12 ESPN Thursday night game at Rutgers, the Bulls will be without their top receiver and deep threat.

“I have no idea what’s going on with him. I do know he is hurt. I do know he’s getting treatment every day since the game,” QB B.J. Daniels said. “Hopefully he’ll be back because he’s a big part of our offense.”

TAKING IT PERSONALLY: Going into last week’s game against West Virginia, DE George Selvie was tired of hearing about USF’s midseason nosedives of the past two years.

“I don’t know about everybody else, but I took it personally,” he said. “I’ve been here so long with this football team, and to hear people talking about us that bad, I always take it personally. So we all had something to prove with that.”

Selvie used the negative talk as motivation in USF’s 30-19 win.

“We had a lot of people talking about, ‘They’re going to lose three in a row,’ ” Selvie said. “So it was just time to shut up all the people that were talking about us. This isn’t the same team as years before. We actually got through this and stopped the slump before it happened.”

ODDS AND ENDS: USF will not practice Thursday or Friday. The Bulls coaching staff will use the down time to recruit. … USF will resume workouts on Saturday in preparation for Rutgers.