NC State football's opponent this Saturday is a rebuilding South Florida squad.

What should the Wolfpack expect from the Bulls? We turned to Ben McCool of BullsInsider.com to get some answers.

"The biggest reason the Bulls won just one game last season was the pandemic. While COVID-19 outbreaks affected many, if not all football teams last season, the lack of depth on the USF roster magnified the impact.

"For example, there were multiple games where the starting offensive line was out due to contact tracing or actual infection (this wasn’t always specified by USF). The linemen, as you know, work out in a group. Unfortunately for the Bulls, they lacked size and experience behind the starters, and that had a direct impact in games. The coaches were down to 64 players, about half the team, one week. Some higher profile programs might have the depth to deal with that, but USF did not last season.

"Beyond the enormous impact of the pandemic, the entire coaching staff at USF was new. First year staffs often struggle with implementation of new systems and sorting out which personnel are going to remain with the team. USF's head coach, Jeff Scott, made a determination when he arrived from Clemson that he was not going to watch film on his players and he was going to make his depth chart decisions based strictly on camp performances. Of course, camps were promptly interrupted by outbreaks and contact tracing, so Scott’s ability to size up his team on a player-by-player basis was made extremely difficult.

"The final big reason the Bulls struggled to win just one game last season was personnel. For reasons that remain unknown, the past two head coaches at USF recruited mostly undersized players. Worse, they didn’t do enough to develop those players in the weight room. This resulted in size mismatches, even when their starters were in the games. They also lost some players to transfers, particularly in the quarterback group, which added to depth issues, which were exacerbated by COVID-19."