South Florida jumped out to a big lead and Tulsa attempted a fourth quarter comeback, but the Bulls went on to crush the Golden Hurricane, 63-30, Saturday at Raymond James Stadium, in Tampa, Florida.

The Bulls (6-5, 4-3 AAC) scored five consecutive touchdowns before the Golden Hurricane got on the scoreboard. With the win, USF became bowl eligible. Tulsa dropped to 3-8 overall, 1-6 AAC). The loss cost Tulsa head coach Kevin Wilson his job. He was fired on Sunday.

“They (USF) ran their plays, they go tempo, they go fast,” Wilson said after the game. “They had 450 yards at halftime, 700 total. They just ran their stuff fast, made their plays and played well…we just got our butts waxed.”

There was certainly a lot of offense in this game with the teams combining for 93 points and 1,193 yards, however, the bulk of the stats were in favor of USF. The Bulls gained a total of 715 yards of offense with 308 coming on the ground and 407 passing yards.

Tulsa had two big plays in the game; a 77-yard Anthony Watkins run, and a 72-yard Kirk Francis pass to Joseph Williams. Tulsa tallied 478 yards with 223 on the ground and 255 passing. Tulsa’s Watkins finished with 101 rushing yards and Williams led the way with 126 receiving yards.

The Bulls jumped out to a big lead early and finished the first quarter with four touchdowns on five possessions for a 28-0 lead. USF extended its lead to 35-0 early in the second quarter before Tulsa scored its first points.

“We wanted to come out fast tonight, and I think we did a good job there,” said USF head coach Alex Golesh. “We wanted to be focused on doing our job one play at a time at a high clip, and that sounds elementary, but we’ve struggled with that at times this year. Five turnovers on defense, and that’s two weeks in a row with a (big number) and that’ll be the difference in a game every time. That was impressive to see.”

The first Tulsa touchdown was an 11-yard pass from Cooper Legas to Williams in the corner of the end zone, making it 35-7.

The Bulls scored on six of their 10 first-half possessions and went into halftime leading 42-7.

“We have not been a good red zone team, and we have not been a team that’s very good at giving up big plays,” Wilson said.          “We’re horrendous at that, we’re one of the worst in the country, that’s why our record is what it is.”

Tulsa’s Lloyd Avant took the second-half kickoff to the USF 11-yard line, but the Bulls ended Tulsa’s hopes for a score with an interception in the end zone. It was the third interception of the game by Legas, and he was replaced by Kirk Francis.

The Bulls scored the only points in the third quarter before the teams combined for 37 points in the final quarter with Tulsa scoring three touchdowns and converting two two-point conversions for 23 points.

USF quarterback Bryce Archie completed 21-of-31        passes for 305 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. Archie said it was great to see how his team came together early in this game.

“It feels great we’ve gone through so much adversity this year and to finally come out in the first half, click and really finish a game with 60 something points,” Archie said. “I mean, that’s kind of been our whole season, going through adversity, and then, it’s going to click.”

The Bulls commanding lead in the second half allowed the team to play a lot of second and third string players.

“The second half was sloppy in a lot of ways,” Golesh said. “But on the flip side of that, we got to play a lot of guys for the second week in a row, who we could see in live action.”

Tulsa snapped a streak of four games without a rushing touchdown with three touchdowns on the ground in this game. Besides Avant, Tulsa had 179 kickoff return yards on three returns for a season best; the longest was by Braylin Presley who returned a kick 84 yards.

Tulsa will close out the season on Saturday, when the Florida Atlantic Owls visit H.A. Chapman Stadium for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff.