New voice, same plight: Charlie Strong seeks local support

[Apis Bull]

At times, USF's chronic football attendance issue festered like a nagging blister in Willie Taggart's otherwise buoyant psyche.

Once the Bulls had turned the corner on his watch, brandishing one of the most dynamic offenses in all of Division I, Taggart periodically called out the area for failing to support the team in-person. Even women's hoops coach Jose Fernandez chimed in with some castigating of his own.

Five months before his first game, Charlie Strong hasn't reached a similar level of frustration -- yet. But it's clear he understands the plight of his predecessor, who watched the Bulls draw an average actual turnout of 27,601 fans for seven home games in a breakthrough 2016 season.

"I think about last year, we won 11 games, and there's no reason for our fans to not come out and support this football team," Strong said after Saturday's situational scrimmage on campus.

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/bulls/new-voice-same-plight-charlie-strong-seeks-local-support/2318929

 

[Paisa el Toro]

He's right. It drives me nuts to hear about USF grads throwing their money and time at UF or FSU simply because they've always done it, not because they actually attended those institutions. Support your alma mater, support your Bulls. 

[Skingraft]

1 word: schedule 

its not strong enough to bring in the new or casual fan

[jchem1995]

There's a lot to this puzzle. Conference / schedule / lack of anything positive from local media outlets to help create a buzz.

I do my part.

[JoeB]

USF Admin needs to really push this season on the Community.  Every chance they get and every dollar they can spend to spread the word on this team will come back to them tenfold.

[Brad]

Schedule and consistency. Some may still be suffering from the toilet years.  Would be nice to slay a giant or two to attract attention again.  

[George_Bullnard_Shaw]

Attendance lags performance. Our schedule is thinner than bargain basement bulk toilet paper and a university in a large metropolitan area has to compete with tons of entertainment offerings.

[Bausfkid]

We all do our part to support USF, now it's time for the bay area to do their part (USF Alumni, Athletics, High Schools, Marketing, the list could go on and on) no matter if they play the Seminole Warhawks each week.

FSU has Miami and Louisville at home this year.  Everyone else is an also-ran at best.

Miami has ND at home this year.  Everyone is no one in college football.

UF has a whale of a home schedule this year (Texas A & M, UT, FSU, LSU). 

 

Go Bulls!

[Triple B]

19 minutes ago, Skingraft said:

1 word: schedule 

its not strong enough to bring in the new or casual fan

If you're going to try and simplify it to one word, it would be "conference", which encompasses the schedule .... but that's still a ******** excuse after the last two seasons. There is no freaking legit reason in the world that the last home game last season shouldn't have sold out the lower bowl. I still think it all goes back to the BE invite and the 2007 "success" story. It may have been better to organically build a program rather than have the artificial boost of those early BE years ... but who knows if that would have worked out better or not. Bottom line, IMO, I just don't think USF has the ingrained passion for athletics that's needed to be where most on here want us to be .... and like G_B_S brought up, the area, with all the other offerings, sport-wise and other things, does nothing to help the situation.

[bullsfan27]

We need to win a few conference titles and a couple of NY6 bowls to make us a stronger candidate for exapansion. The fact we are located in tampa doesn't help as Tampa isn't a college town and has 3 major sports teams (rays, bucs, and lightning) we have to compete against for the entertainment $$$. The conference affiliate doesn't help but that can be taking care of if we can show we belong with the big boys which will only be achieved by winning a few conference titles and NY6 bowls. A national title wouldn't hurt as well but that would be extremely hard for us to do as the probability of a G5 team getting into the 4 team playoff are extremely low.