BuckeyeBull9257

USF has a Marketing and PR department? I've been here two years and haven't noticed. Maybe they need to work a tad bit harder. Step up the hype or something. Advertise maybe? XD

Big 12 would be fun. Yearly games against teams with massive crowd appeal like Texas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia (an old rival) would draw in more people from the area to watch games. With the money from the TV deal and traveling fans of these big teams we could have a real athletic budget without subsidizing with our tuition in several years. We could be in a national spotlight several times a year playing big teams with a big bowl game to look forward to at the end of the year. ACC would be alright too. Not as many traditional big name teams but a few in-state rivals to face in Florida State and Miami and good old Louisville back on the schedule. Basketball would be a challenge every year and also bring in the big bucks with the ACC basketball TV deals. Another way to balance this budget. Assuming UCF becomes a package deal, we keep that rivalry in any conference we jump to. Keeps things interesting. Just hope we jump this AAC ship fast before we get too sunk-in. I don't want to have to watch us play nobody teams year in and year out. This school should be aiming to compete for big conference titles and against big teams with the amount of money the administration puts into athletics.

Attendance: Hurts. No Top 10 opponent. While Louisville is still a good team, casual fans from the area will be less likely to go to the game. It won't be AS exciting or big if USF wins. It will just turn into "struggling USF against still-ranked-and-powerful-but-not-unbeaten Louisville." Not going to help attendance. Chances of winning: 50/50. Either Louisville comes in strong and ready to play with a chip on their shoulder, or they come in and pull a Northwestern (Week after they lost to Ohio State to ruin their unbeaten season, they played with too much emotion against Wisconsin, tried to do too much and played bad football). Future of the Program: Unknown. UCF just got one of its signature wins in program history (took them long enough). If we are looking to escape this conference and get into a Power 5, we need a big win in the next few years to prove ourselves. Winning against an unbeaten Louisville could have been a huge boost. It would have legitimized CWT's new era, put us on track for a Conference Championship, and given us a morale boost for the year. More fans in the stands every game and confident play. Now a win next week still puts us on track for a Conference Championship, but it won't give us that boost of support and confidence that we need. A loss will knock us out of the race for that first Conference Title and hurt attendance for the rest of the year. Overall: Time will tell. We let the boys work and earn this.

Noon games in Ray Jay are hotter than Hades. O.o

Its nice to see we aren't even on the waiting list. Its also nice to see michigan on the list in our place. Its like my dream come true for the week <3

He got inside people's heads with those strategic time outs, played mind games! Unfortunately, the heads he got inside of were our own....WELP

Lets see, Factors going into the game for attendance... 1) Homecoming, which the school does a moderate job of promoting. It will draw more students (especially seniors and grads) who want to celebrate a bit. 2) Winning streak. The fans understand the last two games were ugly, but they were wins so they will remember that. Problem is, they also probably remember the drubbing we took from McNeese St. They want a redemption game, but most on campus here are expecting a loss. Still we can ride that win streak to a few thousand more people in the stands. 3) #8 ranked Louisville is in the house for the last time. That ranking will draw the curious and the people who will want to watch a Heisman contender play. Also, who wouldn't want to send an unbeaten conference team packing one last time? (we can dream) 4) Louisville fans. Not exactly an in state team or a fan base like Ohio State who can fill Cal's stadium for them. But they will have a few thousand ravenous fans looking to keep their BCS hopes alive. They'll be here making noise. Considering the last game's attendance was 16K, I'll try to assume that these factors will largely impact attendance. 34,000 (5.5K students) Bulls fans/people from the area who get bored and buy cheap tickets in the lot. 3-6,000 Louisville fans spread out. Some from the area and some flying down. So 37-40K in the seats. Hope we can win, but we need a healthy Shaw and Bench to really get this thing moving. Bring out the trick plays and work hard this week. We just might do it with those factors in our favor.

Let Bench, Eveld, and Floyd be our 3 strings of Quarterbacks. I don't see the point in burning White's redshirt if our problem becomes injuries to the first two. Why risk injuring a freshman that you hope might be able to run this system the next few years? Plus think of the image we would have to recruits if we shoved White in too soon and he gets hurt or something. That would be a killer for us the next few years. Barring any huge injuries to all 3 of the aforementioned quarterbacks I say keep the redshirt. We don't even have the guarantee that he'll do better than the first three.

"The only meaningful statistic is number of games won." -Woody Hayes. All you have to do at the end of the day is win the game. Do what you can to prepare for each team beforehand, but win the game when the time comes. We just have to out work them. Take it one step at a time. Enjoy the win.

Also in fairness, his receivers dropped a few sure passes in the endzone. So take that as you will XD

Final score: 8-3 Bulls win. Two field goals and a safety (That defense of ours will win us the game). Our offense can't find the end zone, but at least we will move the ball. XD Here's hoping.

I agree, it will take time to earn back the fan base as a whole since USF hasn't got the 100+ year history and national pedigree of other major in-state schools. Winning is the only way to put butts in the seats for a young program. Playing solid opponents would also help. You know...established opponents XD I also know that, as a student, its hard to get out to Ray Jay. When you have to make the choice to go all the way out to Raymond James, you want to make sure the ride back is in victory and not in humiliating defeat. Wins will sooth those reservations also. I believe the OCS thing has been discussed over and over here and its a split between "sounds great" and "never mention that again." ;P

Eh, if anything that would have just made us upset and given us reason not to go if they lose more games. In The Oracle today it states he "understands the fan's frustration and his team is working toward earning back the fan base. He just asks that when the team gets it going, everybody come back." (Its on the back page under "Win") Now THAT is a grown man's humble response to a loss of support this season. Makes me feel like he cares about us as fans, makes me feel bad for not going this week. He's an honest man who earns what he gets and that includes respect.

how do you expect to build tradition and history if you and others don't show up when the team is struggling and trying to rebuild? Nothing but fairweather. Truth be told I wasn't a huge USF sports guy when I got here, I've been trying my best to get into it the last 2 years of school. It gets hard when the college you attend, but not necessarily the one you rooted for your whole life, is getting smashed. I also find it hard to really get into a game where we get smashed and we don't have many crowd cheers or crowd traditions that are unique to USF to get me going when we are down. So I made the choice to study and focus on academics this weekend rather than attend a game I had every right to believe we would lose. I was wrong about us losing, but I got some quality study hours in. Its up to the team to build the history, what little they have is impressive but unfortunately in a world where conference and national titles are key to a larger local fan base, we are severely lacking in that category. It doesn't help that most kids here grew up rooting for Miami, FSU, and UF so their inter-state allegiances are skewed. Fairweather maybe. I can see how you could come to that conclusion. I wish I could get behind the team more and have fun doing it, but this week I chose to watch us play from home and focus on school-work rather than potentially suffer another letdown. I'll be there for the 'Ville game, after that I'll make determination on a week to week basis.

You mess with the bull, you get the horns XD

Its a young program. We don't have the history of Alabama, Ohio State, or Texas to draw the crowds. USF football was the fastest team in history to reach the Top 10 in the national rankings system and people expect wins. Now we get sluggish losses and it hits hard on a new fan base. We students come from all over, we have allegiances to other schools from where we were raised. I'm not from Tampa or even Florida for that matter. I went to every game last year despite the last-minute losses and heart-shattering defeats. I went to the first 3 games this year hoping to see a different team emerge. It wasn't happening. So I took a week off, decided to save on parking money and study instead. USF ended up winning an ugly game. Part of me wishes I had been there, but overall I don't quite know what to think about future games. Louisville? Heck yeah I'll be there, if only to see a top-ranked team play. But games against such weaklings as Memphis or SMU? I may sit those out. It all depends on performance these next few weeks. Call it being a bandwagon fan if you will, but I can only take seeing this college getting spanked so many times before I give up cheering until they show progress. USF lacks the things to keep people coming back no matter what: History and Tradition.