South Florida's postseason hopes were essentially wiped out Saturday as the Bulls fell behind early and could never catch up to Navy, which used a flood of big plays in a 41-38 American Conference victory.
The Bulls (7-3, 4-2 in the American) came into the game in control of their playoff destiny. They were ranked 24th by the College Football Playoff committee and projected as the 12th seed in the postseason bracket. But with three losses, that door is likely closed.
With two conference losses, USF also lost ground for reaching the American championship game.
“To go and play on the road against a really good football team in conference, you’ve got to play great football. At times we did, at times we didn’t,” South Florida coach Alex Golesh said. “We got outplayed at some critical times.”
The Midshipmen (8-2, 6-1) used chunk plays throughout to maintain control of the contest, then put it away on a pair of runs by backup quarterback Braxton Woodson.
Woodson ran for 103 yards and two touchdowns in relief of a banged up Horvath.
Alex Tecza, who carried 12 times for 126 yards, opened the scoring with a 76-yard run through the middle of the Bulls' defense before USF's Nico Gramatic ended a seven-play, 77-yard drive with a 22-yard field goal.
Eli Heidenreich then made a one-handed catch on a deep throw from Blake Horvath to move Navy 82 yards to the USF 4-yard line. Brandon Chatman scored on the next play.
Navy led 24-9 at the half, but the Bulls closed the gap with 22 points in the fourth quarter.
The Navy lead was tightened to 27-24 on a pair of runs by quarterback Byrum Brown, including a 60-yard dash with 13:59 left in the game.
However, USF was never able to keep the Midshipman offense under control.
"We will be back in this spot as a program again," Golesh said. "We work really hard to play meaningful games in November."
Heidenreich's 32-yard catch from Woodson was a crucial moment during an eight-play, 75-yard scoring drive that ended with Woodson's 20-yard scoring run to make it 34-24 with 9:29 left.
On Navy's next possession, Woodson ran 64 yards for the Midshipmen's third play of 60 or more yards to make it 41-30. On his last run, Woodson ran 9 yards to pick up a crucial first down and virtually seal the win.
“It was just a very emotional first down, because I knew we needed that to close out the game,” Woodson said.
Brown threw for 327 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 136 yards and two more scores for South Florida.
With 2,530 yards in the air and 841 on the ground, Brown moved closer to becoming only the 12th player in FBS history to post a 3,000/1,000 season.
Heidenreich caught five passes for 146 yards and became Navy's all-time receiving yards leader.
“It was a really special feeling," Heidenreich, a senior, said after his class' final regular-season home game. “To be able to go out and perform like that on a day for them, really. ... To be able to do it in that manner was really cool.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
