South Carolina vs. USF, Birmingham Bowl 2016: Bulls win OT thriller

We judge a coach harshly for poor halftime adjustments when a team blows a halftime lead. We praise a coach to high heavens for the same thing if there’s a second-half turnaround.

But halftime adjustments aren’t nearly what we make them. For one thing, you’re adjusting all game, from the opening series. For another, though halftime is an opportunity for all of a team’s coaches to chat face-to-face in a less real-time atmosphere, by the time the guys in the booth get down the elevator and to the locker room, they’ve got about five or 10 minutes. Not exactly time to fill the dry erase board.

In Thursday’s Birmingham Bowl (2 p.m. ET, ESPN), South Florida’s in a bit of a transitional phase. The Bulls lost head coach Willie Taggart to Oregon after their regular season ended, and they hired recently fired Texas coach Charlie Strong to replace him. Neither man’s coaching the bowl game, as Taggart left immediately to start work in Eugene and Strong isn’t hitting the sidelines until next year.

So USF’s got an interim boss for this game: USF co-offensive coordinator T.J. Weist, a former Alabama receiver who says he’ll bring some Bama with him to this game:

USF and South Carolina enter this year’s Birmingham Bowls under some pretty different circumstances. The Bulls are coming off of their first-ever 10-win season, but much of that is credited to former head coach Willie Taggart, who has settled into his new digs at Oregon. South Carolina, on the other hand, looked to be headed towards an unexpected seven or eight-win season in Will Muschamp’s first year, but losses in the Gamecocks’ last three games brought them to 6-6 on the season.

One of the biggest questions entering this game surrounds how the Bulls will come out without their head coach. USF has since hired former Texas head coach Charlie Strong, but Taggart’s co-offensive coordinator T.J. Weist will be the interim head man for this bowl.