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About this blog

A blog to discuss site issues and ideas as well as some occasional rambling, reflecting and repeating old USF stories.

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Artifacts

Not too long ago, someone suggested posting some of the old stuff from the early years.  I have probably 5 hard drives of stuff, but three of those hard drives don't seem to want to work.  Anyway, a more recent one had a mini-trove of interesting stuff I thought I'd toss out here to get it started.  Please feel free to add your own and to comment so I know someone is seeing this stuff! First, I have a circa 2005 Athletics Master Planning image you'd probably enjoy seeing considering today's

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

Invite system

I am very pleased to announce that I have purchased a member invite system that is now integrated into the board.  You will see the changes if you look in the upper right section of the screen.  You'll see something that looks like a ticket.  If you click that, you can enter into the app and invite people you know to TheBullsPen.com.  You simply enter email addresses and the system sends out an invite (pictured below, looks better live) that allows the receiver to click to go to TBP and aut

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

Hey Bulls fans, what to you want to know about Bulls Football?

Hey Members and Bulls fans,  I have been in touch with some of the folks in the media that follow and report on our USF Bulls.  Looks like we'll have a handful with interest in being introduced here and getting to know us while we get to know them (better).   For the group, it's looking like the range of questions can cover a lot of ground.  I have asked for collaboration with a broad range from beat writers to USF Administrators.  Instead of asking you to provide questions to specific

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

2001 Article - USF Official Site Problems

In a recent discussion about local coverage of the USF Bulls football program (What’s with Knight and the McNeese State references?) I mentioned some of the involvement of former beat writers Brett McMurphy, Greg Auman and Jeff Odom having interaction with TheBullsPen.com.  In fact, I recalled how the relationship benefited both parties as TBP promoted McMurphy and Auman in the days of USF's rise to national awareness.  Both McMurphy and Auman frequented the board and from it gathered story idea

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

2005 Article on Message Boards

Another clipping from the very early days.  The writer mentions three Bulls fans all of which were members here back in 2005, our 5th/6th year of existence.  If you have trouble reading, let me know I will try to add a screen grab easier on the eyes.   Tue, Feb 15, 2005 – 21 · Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Florida) · Newspapers.com   Tue, Feb 15, 2005 – 24 · Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Florida) · Newspapers.com

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

"SNORTIN FIRE AND BREATHIN' SMOKE"

Seems we're finally getting old enough as a football program or athletic program overall for people to start appreciating the retro or vintage Bulls logos.  I grabbed this page off the internet archive site.  It was created quite a bit ago from an old basketball media guide I bought.  Best part is it includes our boy, @smazza in it!     Please allow load time for this graphics intensive page A look back at Bulls teams of yesteryear  

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

BullVenturesInc.com

How about a look way back at the early days and origin of The Bulls Pen, saved from the internet archive.           This site, bullventuresinc.com, was the lead site in the sprawling internet based empire led by the former entrepreneur known as Bulliever. Bulliever incorporated a company known as "Bull Ventures, Inc. (BVI)  It was a company whose charter and mission would lead into unknown recess

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

Before there was an official "USF Athletic Hall of Fame"

Continuing to inventory relics of the old SouthFloridaBulls.com takes us to one of the more offbeat things a young USF fan base did.  After about 4-5 years of football we decided it was time to erect an online "Hall of Fame".  Since we're a fans' site, fewer rules got in the way.  This allowed us to induct anyone that was making a difference at that time for the upstart USF Football team or elsewhere within Athletics. Ancient html makes this a less than pretty page, but take a look.  

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

A Look Back to 2002 and SouthFloridaBulls.com/TheBullspen.com

Located on line, via the internet archive:   SouthFloridaBulls.com seeks to deliver new ways for Bulls fans to come together, while cultivating as many new fans as possible.  We are committed to building a strong online Bulls presence.  Please spend some time with us and become apart of the Bulls community. SouthFloridaBulls.com Turns 5!       SouthFloridaBu

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

TBP in the News 2006; Leavitt Called "Brief"

Below you will find an article written by Brett McMurphy.  It is from August 2006 and you can detect McMurphy's entitlement and his disdain for Coach Jim Leavitt.  Leavitt was being Leavitt, which probably wasn't helpful and the article became about Leavitt.  There were some player issues that brought this on and we know how that worked with the media back then.  Oh and by the way, this is clearly from back when Brett and I were on talking terms.  Towards the end of the article, he piped in how

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

BullsGallery.com is back

I have been working on restoring the latest version of BullsGallery.com.  Not yet finished, but you are welcome to take a look. BullsGallery.com   Right now, there are nearly 12,000 images ranging from 1997 to 2014.  There are still many to enter including Bulls @ Penn State and sets from 2015 and 2016.  There are sets taken back in the 1999-2002 era.  Granted the image capabilities are much better now, but it gives you a look at some of the older, early games of the Bulls.

Brad

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TBP NFL Office Pool

Open for registration now is our first annual site "office pool" where members compete against each other picking the NFL winners against the spread.  It is hosted by CBS Sports.  It's free to sign up and play. The link is in this thread: I hope you'll join and take part in this with other Bulls fans and board members.

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

TBP Gallery and the 2016-17 Football Season

In the past, I've struggled to get the gallery function working as I would like it to.  I think I have it figured out, and I'd like Bulls fans to help out.  We had permissions issues before, but I think it's ready to work. I have already set up the primary events for the 2016-17 season. As a member, if you'll look in the top menu bar, select Browse, you'll see a submenu for the Gallery.  Click on that and you will see the first box is titled 2016-17 USF Football.  Click on that and you

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Member Leaderboard functionality

If you look across the top of the site (desktop mode) in the main title bar, you'll see tabs for "Browse", "Activity", "New & Info" and so through "More".  Some of these have sub-menus with other content or links.  Under "Members" is "Leaderboard" and "Member Map".   For mobile version, click on the three bars in upper right corner to see the menus. Leaderboard lists the "top rated members" by content for the day, week month or custom period.  If you look at last week, I Bleed Awesomene

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

Around the site...

I know a lot of people bookmark the Main Page and reach it directly, often on mobile, but there is more that the site has to offer to our USF Bulls online community.  Of course the message boards are heating up with talk of the new season, but there are other pages and links I think you'd enjoy, including:   Gallery set up for season Media Guides, wallpapers and other digital downloads Consolidated video collection of past games Twitter feeds from top beat reporters New RSS board gatherin

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

New Members To-Do List

I've noticed quite a few members that have joined recently (and some members that have been so for longer periods) have not personalized their profile picture.  Using the default profile image is okay: Those are some nice horns, but take a little time and you can break from the herd with your own image.  If you look in the upper right corner you'll see your screen name.  Click on the arrow next to it and select Profile, under Content. On your profile page, you'll see an icon

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

Some of the crazy stuff you find in the attic...

Occasionally I look through some of the hard drives and find some old memories.  When you think about this site being around for almost 18 years there has to be good stuff, right?  The board, when it was young, had a lot of great posts lost in the great crashes of 2005- 2007 (I think).  We lost some great stories by @TheSheriff and probably more.  I had a couple hard drives die.  One resuscitated briefly and I retrieved some board images as well as some tax returns.   I came across remnants

Brad

Brad in Site Archives

How about the old "TheBullsPen.com" radio ad?

A while back when the site was spending some dollars to help rally the USF Bulls community, we put out a radio ad to attract additional members.  Initially, I used the Google radio advertising service that allowed access to dozens of stations across Florida.  I remember UCFers posting on the board they heard an ad for TBP in Orlando and it grinded on them a bit.  Ultimately Google closed down that part of the business.  I later worked with a local Tampa station to run the ads - I think it may ha

Brad

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