The Big East Conference showed some muscle Saturday as all four football programs -- South Florida Bulls, Pittsburgh Panthers, Cincinnati Bearcats and Connecticut Huskies -- all earned victories. The four wins helped the conference improve to 7-0 in the opening week.
Here's a brief recap of what happened Saturday:
USF 23, Notre Dame 20: Quarterback B.J. Daniels was an efficient 18-for-30 with 128-passing yards and a touchdown, and the Bulls defense forced five Fight Irishing turnovers which helped USF claim a victory at South Bend.
USF (1-0) jumped out to a 16-0 halftime advantage thanks to three field goals by kicker Maikon Bonani and a first-quarter fumble recovery that turned into a 96-yard touchdown by Keyvon Webster. From there, the Bulls battled through two weather delays -- one at halftime, which lasted 2 hours and 10 minutes, and the other of 43 minutes -- and a desperate fourth-quarter comeback attempt by the Fighting Irish (0-1) that fell short.
Here's some post-game reaction from USF's SB Nation blog Voodoo Five:
"I know the media narrative of the game is that Notre Dame beat themselves and USF isn't getting their due credit, but come on... Notre Dame totally beat themselves. They gained exactly twice as many yards as the Bulls (508-254). Rees threw for more yards in the second half (296) than the Bulls gained in the whole game. USF was 2-for-14 on third down and only gained 3.5 yards per play."
Pittsburgh 35, Buffalo 16: Ray Graham ran for 201 yards and scored three TDs as the Panthers (1-0) earned a victory in their season opener at Heinz Field.
Pittsburgh's new "high-octane" offense, which has been implemented by new head coach Tim Graham, took a while to get going -- the Panthers led just 7-3 at halftime -- but, things worked out in the end.
Cincinnati 72, Austin Peay 10: Quarterback Zach Collaros tossed for 134 yards and four TDs to help the host Bearcats cruise past the Govenors at Nippert Stadium. Cincinnati (1-0) led 41-0 at halftime.
Connecticut 35, Fordham 3: Freshman running back Lyle McCombs ran for 141 yards and four TDs as the Huskies dusted the Rams at Rentschler Field.