Jeff Scott made his plea for continuity, and Bob Shoop had once coordinated some of the most ferocious defenses in college football.
Sunday, neither element mattered.
The University of South Florida, on the heels of an indefensible and rather inexcusable performance in a loss against Temple, parted ways with both Scott, the program’s head coach, and Shoop, the Bulls’ defensive coordinator, in moves that serve as precursor to the end of the season.
“When Jeff came to Tampa in December of 2019, we had high expectations of where he could take our program,” Michael Kelly, USF’s athletics director, said in a statement. “While he did so many things right, including rebuilding our culture, pushing forward our indoor performance facility, and engaging our community, the on-the-field results fell well below our standards.”
The Bulls, throttled 54-28 Saturday against Temple as they fell to 1-8 on the season, have turned to Daniel Da Prato as the team’s interim coach for the season’s final three games.
Da Prato is an original member of Scott’s staff, arriving at USF as the program’s special teams coordinator in December 2019.
USF’s only win this season is against Howard, a Football Championship Subdivision team that does not compete at college football’s Football Bowls Subdivision level.
Da Prato also assumes the interim head coach’s role despite Scott’s additional earlier this year of veteran FBS head coach Chad Morris, the former skipper at both SEC resident Arkansas as well as SMU.
While Scott boasts remarkable success as a coordinator under Dabo Swinney at Clemson, he doesn’t own any kind of similar progress at USF.
The program in the past year unveiled a master plan for facilities that included new space for the Bulls’ football program on both gameday and for practice, but nothing that translated into wins.
USF under Scott languished to a 4-26 ledger that included just one win – last season against a Temple team that made a change atop its program – against FBS competition.