USFbulls24

We are so far away from that type of team it's disheartening

Yawn....

I think that's just a matter of a RS freshman not adjusting right away to the speed of college football. He's obviously intelligent if they have made him the QB of the defense. I think the play will follow, there's a learning curve for most players. Luckily for us at this point, he's got an entire season of starting under his belt and only a RS sophomore.

Considering how bad our conference is, that we've brought in 3 straight good recruiting classes (based off our conference), and our team is getting older there are plenty of reasons to think we could get to .500. I don't trust Taggart to be a good coach, but it wouldn't take a master mind to find a way to beat 5 G5 teams after FAMU this year. I think the change in offense was more of a smart move than desperation. Desperation may have brought the change, but after seeing what his scheme has produced the first 2 years I would label the move as smart.

Unfortunately, when they put this conference together they seemed to for the most part minus Houston and UCF to take anyone that was willing to come. Quality instead of quantity. Even though the East is better there's not 1 team in our division that should be better than us consistently so. Just have to take care of our own business.

Doubled the win total .... While fielding a worse team when looking at statistics.... We have SMU and Tulsa to thank for that.

. I make my statements on Taggart and his offense based off of results, numbers, facts etc. You have based your side of the argument on the if CJL was still here we could've ran into the same "wall" on hypotheticals.

Nearly impossible for him to answer, but he loses points with me on the old nature of the game, ups and downs. Nonsense - it was a manmade disaster. Unfortunately, he can't say that. Or he could have said we lost the next 3 in conference games and it hasn't been the same since. Yes, except that too wouldn't really answer the question truthfully. Isn't truth in the eye of the beholder, so that could be CR's truth while manmade disaster is yours? No, I don't play that game. Sorry. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. Reasonable, rational men like you and CR both know the program didn't freefall because of the natural dips in college football. I don't know about CR, but I don't know that. The program very well could have hit the same wall if CJL had been retained. I want to believe it wouldn't have but you never know .... most college programs DO have their natural dips. Haha. Is everything with you the "you don't know unless it actually happens" or if you "saw it with your own eyes". If you take that approach you could say the same about EVERYTHING IN LIFE. We could've been a 9-3 team if Steven Bench started every single game last year, you never know... right? Taking the side of "anything is possible and you never know" then yea we could've gone 22-39 in the 5 years he's been gone and 14-34 in the last 4 years with CJL here, but it is extremely unlikely. Isn't that the approach you take when blaming CWT's play calling for most of our offensive deficiencies rather than the ineffectiveness of the players? It's a tool most use at times when presenting an argument ... Yes, the approach I take when calling out the results of Taggart running the offense the last 2 years based off of numbers and facts is the same exact tool you used above..

Nearly impossible for him to answer, but he loses points with me on the old nature of the game, ups and downs. Nonsense - it was a manmade disaster. Unfortunately, he can't say that. Or he could have said we lost the next 3 in conference games and it hasn't been the same since. Yes, except that too wouldn't really answer the question truthfully. Isn't truth in the eye of the beholder, so that could be CR's truth while manmade disaster is yours? No, I don't play that game. Sorry. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. Reasonable, rational men like you and CR both know the program didn't freefall because of the natural dips in college football. I don't know about CR, but I don't know that. The program very well could have hit the same wall if CJL had been retained. I want to believe it wouldn't have but you never know .... most college programs DO have their natural dips. Haha. Is everything with you the "you don't know unless it actually happens" or if you "saw it with your own eyes". If you take that approach you could say the same about EVERYTHING IN LIFE. We could've been a 9-3 team if Steven Bench started every single game last year, you never know... right? Taking the side of "anything is possible and you never know" then yea we could've gone 22-39 in the 5 years he's been gone and 14-34 in the last 4 years with CJL here, but it is extremely unlikely.

And some say Harlan didn't tell him to change the offense. Right. So you think Harlan is a liar .... "I didn’t come in and mandate anything." So you think Harlan is a liar when he says he has experience with football and he shared some "thoughts" that Taggart "listened to"? Just the opposite, I believe that's exactly what happened. You conveniently left out the preceding sentence from Harlan, "He had some real thoughts about what he wanted to do." They sat down and shared some thoughts about this year and Taggart went out and did what he ultimately thought needed to be done to save his job, without Harlan mandating him to do anything specific. How you can say that Harlan was "clearly stating that last year's offense was boring and loserville" based on that conversation is totally mind numbing. Was Harlan happy with our defense?BTW, I've imposed on myself a 2 response limit to this kind of stuff to help the feng shui of the board ... so knock yourself out. You are playing semantic games, just like Harlan. He did not mandate specifics. Harlan "suggested" changes, and Taggart was smart enough to make changes along those lines so he wouldn't be fired. Play all the semantic games you want, if Harlan wasn't here the offense would not have changed one iota. Taggart talked long enough about how the offense was great it was the execution that needed to improve. Then, after a conversation with Harlan he all of a sudden changes his entire life philosophy on football without being strongly pushed in that direction? Seriously, what you are suggesting is preposterous. But you know that, so knock yourself out. You make it sound as though CWT doesnt have thoughts of his own...here is a scenerio for ya... CWT is at home watching the post season like everyone else because his team sucks again. He start watching the Ducks play and sees they have success running the ball out of the spread. He goes back and watches some film when they went hurry up and spread out the O a bit and had success. He thinks back to when he ran the spread in FL with coach K and reaches out. It's that entirely implausible?? If I had to guess I would say Harlan had more of a hand in helping make managerial decisions such as getting rid of some folks on the D. In fact CWT made note of the coaches today and how they were excited to be here and not bored. I am sure at the time he struggled on whether or not to get rid of Bres, I could see Harlan saying "does he want to be here? Does he want to win as bad as you do?" For Bres and LB coach (forget his name atm) it s easy to see how they could think this was a step down and werent all in like CWT. Its also easy to see Harlan say: "dont worry about losing what you have think about what you can gain...I have been doing this for a long time and we will get guys here that are capable and want it just as bad as you do. I will make sure you get the supporting staff you need." And look how.he brought in coach K. In my mind that is more realistic role for an AD. Just my 2 cents. Entirely possible. There was a meeting with Harlan that Harlan mentioned was going to take place with Taggart before any of these changes were made, lets not forget that little fact. It's just as possible he lives and dies by the power run because it's all he's ever coached and he believes in it 100% by everything that has ever come out of his mouth about it so a little nudge by the AD about changes needing to be made during that meeting triggered that phone call to Kinnan.

And some say Harlan didn't tell him to change the offense. Right. So you think Harlan is a liar .... "I didn’t come in and mandate anything." So you think Harlan is a liar when he says he has experience with football and he shared some "thoughts" that Taggart "listened to"? Just the opposite, I believe that's exactly what happened. You conveniently left out the preceding sentence from Harlan, "He had some real thoughts about what he wanted to do." They sat down and shared some thoughts about this year and Taggart went out and did what he ultimately thought needed to be done to save his job, without Harlan mandating him to do anything specific. How you can say that Harlan was "clearly stating that last year's offense was boring and loserville" based on that conversation is totally mind numbing. Was Harlan happy with our defense? BTW, I've imposed on myself a 2 response limit to this kind of stuff to help the fung shui of the board ... so knock yourself out. You are playing semantic games, just like Harlan. He did not mandate specifics. Harlan "suggested" changes, and Taggart was smart enough to make changes along those lines so he wouldn't be fired. Play all the semantic games you want, if Harlan wasn't here the offense would not have changed one iota. Taggart talked long enough about how the offense was great it was the execution that needed to improve. Then, after a conversation with Harlan he all of a sudden changes his entire life philosophy on football without being strongly pushed in that direction? Seriously, what you are suggesting is preposterous. But you know that, so knock yourself out. I agree that Harlan strongly suggested significant changes be made to Taggart. I don't think he forced changes or told Taggart exactly what to change. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the main issue with this team under Taggart has been offense so.

You're making up an argument he's never made. No where, let me repeat that slowly...NO WHERE in that article did he state that the past 2 years were disasters because of a team chemistry issues. I know this may be hard for some of you to grasp, but in a team sport, its an accumulation of issues that typically lead to a loss or a bad season overall. Team chemistry (for anyone who watches and follows this team knows) played a part (again, a part, not the whole reason, not the only reason, but a part) in our struggles. A lack of DI QB played a part (player and coaching issue). Some poor play calling on offense and defense played a part (coaching issue). Poor execution played a part (player issue). Lack of talent played a part (previous coach issue). Its not a black and white scenario, and Taggart at no time has made a black and white argument like this. Nowhere? "I see a team that's starting to care about each other like the way that team at Western does. That's a big part of it." Hmmm... And statement right before that.....".......and I'm really excited about the season. I think we're going to have one heck of a season." So he's stating that seeing his team jell and come together is a part of the reason why he's excited for this year. Where in that does he place sole blame on his first two seasons on a lack of team chemistry. Again, you guys are so desperate to hate on anything Taggart related that you are making up arguments. I don't see it the way Shadow does, however I do think it could be taken in an indirect way that he's saying that's a part of the reason we haven't had a lot of success.

If you have 2 RBs on the field and Flowers at QB you basically have 3 RBs on the field. I'm sure we'll see that a ton.

It's funny... Taggart took over a 3-9 team that was falling. I bet you were a Holtz fan because those are the only people who don't actually realize who ruined it. When they win this year, you're welcome to go to Orlando and be at knats fan. He's allowed to be unhappy with the job Taggart has done thus far just like any other fan of USF football. When they win this year? I want nothing more than USF football to go 12-0 and win a national championship and have all the success in the world, but what we've seen out of Taggart and co. don't get upset when some are skeptical. Taggart took over a miserable team/situation, and went 2-10. If we played Rutgers and Louisville instead of SMU and Tulsa last year we would've gone 2-10 again, but we got lucky with a few cupcakes coming onto the schedule and dropping a conference. Outside of recruiting Taggart hasn't done much as far as results are concerned. Maybe the locker room is different, maybe the team mindset is different, maybe the culture is different. Great, fantastic, wonderful. All of that means nothing unless results follow.

...sure, let's fire a coach every three years. That will definitely build the stability we need to win conference and get a P5 call up....smh Gotcha...make sense to me. There's no point in even asking what his expectations for the season is because you'll get the same answer he's given the last few months. Expect a good football team, to play in a new years eve bowl game (lol). Other than the select few big time programs most coaches are just going to say "I'm excited, I'm expecting big things". I agree we should've been better than we were last year, but couldn't expect too much out of that team. We are in an awful conference so a good coach shouldn't need a loaded roster to be near the top if not at the top of this conference especially in year 3 now. I think Taggart takes more heat than he normally would given the circumstances he took over because he runs our offense that has been nothing short of piss-poor. Other than we have a new offensive system, new defensive system, and the notion of our guys are getting older and more experienced so they're going to get better (none are guarantees) we don't have anything to point to of substance to really know that things are going to start to be awesome this year. It's not like this team has a solid offense and we just need to pick up the slack on defense, or we are one good group of WR away from being a serious offense or something like that. Cyber - If the coach is crapping the bed over a 3 year tenure in the AAC he's gotta go. You're not taking over Vanderbilt in the SEC. This is USF in the AAC. Look at Justin Fuente and Memphis. His first two years there, they were 7-17. In year 3 they went 10-3 and were co-champs of the conference. I don't think you could look at their roster and say wow Memphis just had so much talent to work with they had no choice but to go 10-3. Stability is important, but if you don't have what it takes to get the job done they've gotta go. If you look at the flip side going for stability you could stick with a guy for 5-7 years and that just sets your program back even more than firing a few coaches after 3 seasons.

Those days of are done. This isn't Harbaughs system, this is Taggarts. It's fun to harp on, but it has no bearing on this season. Definitely isn't Taggart's system. He's only run the power run his entire career, he's taking from somewhere else and learning on the fly basically. It'll be nice to see the defense get tired on the field and not have a chance if we are able to put the new offense together correctly.

I'm very glad we don't run the triple option. It's entertaining to watch in spurts, but watching that all game every game would be tough for me. I enjoy the passing aspect of football way too much. Not to mention, you narrow the recruits you can get. Your QB recruits that would be interested would go from already slim to almost non existent.

Not sure what this qb ranking is you're going by but it's hard to put much stock in it when one lower rated than MW had these type stats: Tyler Jones - TSU 246/376 65.4% 2670 yds 22 TD's 7 INT's CWT is totally responsible for the bottom line but blaming him for the lack of scoring because of the way he RAN the offense is off base, especially if you watched us play last year. As was mentioned, often the plays were there to be made and the players just didn't execute. We need improvement out of the qb AND every other player on offense to score more points. Hopefully the changes with the offense will make them execute better. The conversation was surrounding QBR. So I pulled up ESPN's QBR ratings. I watched every single road game and was at every single home game except 1. Taggart runs the offense. Taggart calls the plays. Taggart is to blame significantly for the offensive scoring struggles just like the players are and non execution. People talk about the non execution aspect like USF is the only college football team that has or had trouble with execution and that's the only thing that has held us back. Scoring 13 points a game outside of the FCS game and Tulsa is just ridiculous. We had players on that side of the ball to make things happen. I do think most of it had to do with the style of offense, but what I am getting from your response is that Taggart deserves barely any to no blame for the scoring problems?? Comical. From what I gather from above Taggart must have called the right play almost every time last year, and he must have had the right players on the field almost every play, and he must have had the offense prepared perfectly for every game (especially the UCF game or SMU) it was just all the players fault for us not going 10-2. 100% agree we need improvement from the QB AND every other player on offense, but we also need improvement from Taggart in order to make that happen. Most players are not going to get better and develop on their own. That's why he's paid over a million dollars a year. He needs to be a better play caller, be more creative, get the players in the right positions, and flat out find a way to get his team and his offense to score points in an absolute disaster of a conference called the AAC.

They beat (10-3) Clemson last year with their backup QB and scored 23 points. We gave up 30 points to Tulsa and 31 to Western Carolina last year. I believe our defense will be improved, but we are playing an incredibly far superior opponent in FSU on the road. They will do whatever they want on offense against us as they should. We are not a really good team walking in there. Really good teams lose to FSU @ FSU by 10 points.

FSU 42 USF 10

Miserable. I still think even more of an issue is Taggart running the offense. Hopefully the change in offense will be what was holding us back and not Taggart, but considering there were teams that had the same talent if not less to work with were able to put up points with a bad QB most of my blame goes to him. Look at the handful of guys even behind white ranked in the 100+ area and there teams were still able to outscore our team by a good amount. Trevor Siemian (Northwestern) QBR - 43.3. NW averaged 23 ppg last year. Tyler Jones (Texas State) QBR - 43.0. TX ST averaged 34 ppg last year. Quinn Kaehler (San Diego State) QBR - 42.2. SDST averaged 25 ppg last year. James Knapke (Bowling Green State) QBR - 41.0. BG averaged 30 ppg last year. Colby Kirkegaard (Wyoming) QBR - 40.3. WY averaged 21 ppg last year. Pete Thomas (Louisiana Monroe) QBR - 39.9. LM averaged 20 ppg last year. USF averaged 17 ppg last year. That's with a 36 point effort against FCS Western Carolina. Remove that game and we averaged 15.5 points in 11 games and that's with 38 points against Tulsa. Take away the 38 points in the Tulsa game along with the 36 against Western Carolina and in 10 games we averaged 13 ppg. In the AAC our offense doesn't have to have a QB who has a QBR in the 60-70 area to put up points and to win football games. Would be nice, but not necessary. Need improvement out of the QB and the person running the offense.

.... When's the last time you saw an ESPN Tweet say "The Tampa Bay Rays are looking into a trade with a team that can't be named, involving players that can't be named"? Never. But I've seen plenty that have said something along the lines of, Team A in advanced negotiations to deal Player A to Team B. Right now we don't know who Team B will be sending to team A, but stay tuned. It's basically the same thing. Talking about something that's going to happen without knowing exactly who all is involved. I get why some would rather know when they can know all the details, but to be up in arms about it is stupid.

One day something big will happen but I can't tell you what or when. Stay tuned and remember I told you about it first. So.... You're saying someone giving people a heads up that an announcement is going to be made about a player leaving the football team, but they're unable to announce who it is yet. Is the same as what you said above? Sounds like you're just looking for something to complain about. Would you rather have every news about usf football just be a count down of when the season starts? Should ESPN stop talking about possible trades that could happen at the MLB deadline because they aren't official? Take it as it is, in the near future you will find out some roster changes. As far as I'm concerned it gives me a heads up to be on the look out and entertains me for a few hours on who I think it might be.

He should be at the top of every single one that comes out between now and the season starting.

Don't get the beef with VD5. I'd rather know something is coming even if I have to wait a few days to find out what it is exactly.