USFBulls727

Not sure if the OP was sarcasm or not, but we do play down to the level of our opponent. Houston, for example, will force him to drop that slow paced, eat the clock and rest our defense approach, and kick it into another gear, as we saw with GT. We score when we need to, and we'll mostly likely have to do a whole lot of it to beat Houston

UConn might be one of about 3 or 4 FBS teams that don't worry me in the least. They might rank in the 200-220 range if you were to combine the FBS & FCS...

I get the feeling that Gilbert running the vanilla offense, and running it straight ahead so often is what Strong wants. This team can be explosive when it needs to...like vs. GT, or these late 4th quarter comebacks, but if the defense is holding up, we see the garbage, unimaginative offense. Charlie has been saying this since he got here. It might be that Gilbert has his hands tied... https://www.thedailystampede.com/2016/12/22/14051144/usf-football-charlie-strong-gulf-coast-offense-pace-slow-down

This is a very good comparison...

There are many reasons to be optimistic about next year. Barnett will have a full season under his belt with this offense. CronKrite returns (I think), a solid receiving corps return, and the young defense can only get better. It's the coaching that worries me. Strong seems to want to slow the offense down....and I think I remember him saying something to that affect when he got here last year...and it feels like he's doing to our offense what Taggart did to his offense in his first 1.5 years here. Somebody on another thread compared Strong's style to the Rope-a-dope, where we wear opponents down and squeak past them in the second half. It seems we can score quickly when we have to, but Strong is content to chew up clock, and beat teams like ECU and Tulsa on late 4th quarter touchdowns. This isn't my favorite style of football, but if he manages to deliver a Conference Championship, which is still on the table, I'll like it a lot more....

Agree with the first two sentences, and I'm tempted to agree with the last one, but if I had a Nickel for every time I heard that, or thought that way myself, I'd have a ****load of Nickels...

This team is doing what the Hurricanes did last year with all the close wins. Glad we're 6-0 and still in the hunt, but uncomfortable with the fact that in most games, we are a play or two better than mediocre to bad teams...

This is just an awful look. Losing to a 1-4 team, in front of about 110 spectators

You must have missed our 20-13 win over ECU, or our last second win over perennial powerhouse Illinois. We held UMass to a mere 42 points. All indications are that this team is totally a playoff contender.

Well....the unbeatens are: Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Clemson, Notre Dame, WVU, UCF, Colorado, NC State, and Cincy, and us. A case can certainly be made that we've been the least impressive of that group, although that same argument might be applicable to Cincy, Colorado, and NC State. Him saying that we are the worst 5-0 team in all of football is great bulletin board material, but it might be correct. Every game on our schedule, with the exception of UConn, and maybe Tulane, looks kinda like a toss-up to me. I have no idea what to expect from week to week. I had a good feeling about this team after GT, but we've looked VERY beatable since, against mostly crap competition . Neither the Offense or Defense has been consistent, and the discipline has been mostly lacking. I have no idea if we are 10-1 or 7-4 heading into the UCF game. There's a possibility a UCF win over us won't mean much to them.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Strong here. 15-2 record here for Charlie, but anybody know what the combined record of our opponents is over that stretch? I'm guessing way below .500? We certainly are undisciplined. He also mentioned that the Defense is less than the sum of it's talented parts, which could probably be said of the Offense as well.

If we wind up 8-4 as some here are predicting, there will certainly be people agreeing with the title of this thread. I wonder how long being the second or third best team in the AAC East will be good enough? I still have hope that we can get it done this year, but I don't rule 8-4 out either, which would be underachieving IMO. Who would that fall on?

Agreed. We've been underwhelming against a couple of bad teams lately, and are probably lucky to be in the Top 25. I'm not really worried about rankings too much. The ceiling for us is a Conference Championship and an NY6 Bowl. As long as we lose no more than one game (to someone other than UCF), we're going to the AAC CG, ranking or no ranking. Not sure what the obsession with our ranking is all about.

Davis laid another brutal hit on a UMass RB. Amazed they didn't hit him with a targeting call on that kickoff though. I've seen people get flagged for far less obvious hits than that. He's fun to watch though, and the Lejiste comparison is a good one...

I've pretty much accepted the fact that we can't put together a complete game. Between the Offense, Defense, and Special Teams, one of those units is sure to play like crap, each and every week. We will get away with this against the likes of UMass and ECU, but certainly this will bite us before too long. Seemed to be a lot of penalties again. We had two weeks to prepare. Wonder if Charlie will say that he didn't have the team ready yet again. We have a 5-star QB, and some seemingly good targets in St. Felix, McCants, Salomon, Wilcox...I'm surprised at how lame our passing attack looks at times. Our pass protection breaks down far too often, but even when Barnett has time, it seems that either guys aren't getting open, or BB just isn't finding them. Is the WR corps just overrated? Is it Gilbert just not making the most of what he has? We haven't exactly lit it up through the air against some pretty crap teams in UMass and ECU. Nice to be undefeated, but as far as our passing game, we will need to get the GT form again soon if we are to keep this rolling.

Pee 6?

This has become the norm for this team. Our pass blocking is probably the biggest concern right now. If the OL couldn't protect BB against UMass, who will they protect him against? There will be plenty of anxious moments against Tulsa.

Where's Salomon?

USF 45-10 Cronkite Salomon 610

Tulane-Cincy the most interesting game in the conference this week...

Louisville is the UConn of the ACC this year. Pitt was a pretty bad loss, and they are 1-2 in conference so far. I seriously doubt they challenge for anything other than a bowl bid of some sort, but it would be a nice W to have on the resume should they run the table somehow...

I'm pretty sure that was a rhetorical question

Is that Elizabeth Warren's daughter?

Are all injury reports this vague? Seems they are unable to give specifics on any players on the list...