Superhippy

I wonder how many Kickers can say they became a team captain for their college football team. I can't imagine that list is very long. He's earned it though.

Nice quote no doubt. I think Davis is going to play himself into being a 3rd to early 4th round draft pick this season. The fact that he had 49 receptions for 735 yards last season, while the entire team had 2002 passing yards is a little outrageous. If we just become an average passing team in 60th place in the country (3000 yards), then Davis will be looking at somewhere in the 1100 yard and 72 reception range

A 10-2 AAC conference winner can just as easily go to a Cotton, Fiesta, or Orange Bowl now and a 12-0 Mega Conference team could just as easily be left out of the playoffs. I think the rule right now states that the best Non-P5 team has to be placed in a New Years Day game. So aren't we essentially in a Mega-Conference already with the Mountain West, Sunbelt, MAC, and C-USA,. A 10-2 AAC team could get left out in favor of an 11-1 Mountain West team or a 12-0 MAC team. The way the rules are rigged right now they have placed the 62 remaining teams in one big grouping anyways. We might as well just create one official 24 team conference and call it a day. And a 10-2 Mega Conference team could get left out in favor of 11-1 CUSA team or a 12-0 MAC team, especially since you have 2 rounds of conference "playoffs" that would be ripe for upsets ... there just doesn't seem like that much, if any, advantage would be gained by us over the current situation. I really don't think so though. It would work out like Auburn with 2 losses last year getting in over 1 loss Michigan State. The Mega-Conference team with 2 losses would also have a better SOS and no less then 2 wins that would no doubt be better than any wins those other two teams had. A 10-2 USF for example with wins over 10-2 Cincy and 11-1 Boise State looks a whole lot better then a 12-0 Ball State team with a win over 9-3 NIU and then 11 wins over teams with 7 wins or less. We actually already saw this once with Ball State. Undefeated earned them about the #16 ranking and no BCS game.

That's another great idea that could work, except I have no doubt in my mind that the P5 conferences would block it from happening. If they could pull it off though it would accomplish the same thing though of atleast giving those conferences a shot at making the playoff.

That approach terrifies me though. We could win three conference titles in a row and have 3 10-win seasons in a row, and it's not like we would win some award placing us in the Big 12. They could still say, "No Thanks, we want Cincy, Boise, and BYU. thanks for trying." The Big East was second-tier because in an 8 team league and we just beat up on eachother. The numbers just tell you that you will have 1 great team, 1 good team, 2 - 3 average teams, 3 - 4 bad teams. The SEC would be the same way if it only had 8 teams. This is why the SEC also plays 9 in conference games. Each team only has 3 potential loses outside of the conference, and everyone plays a FCS and Sunbelt team anyways, so it's really only one chance. They stack the entire deck so that even though a team like Kentucky sucks and goes 3-9, all of those 9 losses were to SEC teams and made them look stronger record wise so it's all good.

A 10-2 AAC conference winner can just as easily go to a Cotton, Fiesta, or Orange Bowl now and a 12-0 Mega Conference team could just as easily be left out of the playoffs. I think the rule right now states that the best Non-P5 team has to be placed in a New Years Day game. So aren't we essentially in a Mega-Conference already with the Mountain West, Sunbelt, MAC, and C-USA,. A 10-2 AAC team could get left out in favor of an 11-1 Mountain West team or a 12-0 MAC team. The way the rules are rigged right now they have placed the 62 remaining teams in one big grouping anyways. We might as well just create one official 24 team conference and call it a day.

That looks like a cool stadium but I still like the idea of the Bucs and Bulls sharing a stadium like the Jets and Giants do now. Essentially the Jets and Giants can change the color scheme of the stadium at the flip of a switch, and then they just have to change out all of the banners and stuff and the stadium looks unique to each home team. I can see why people want an OCS, but I would prefer that we get to play in a 500+ million dollar stadium, where USF has to pitch in some of the money off campus, then a 150+ million dollar stadium on campus that is essentially going to be entire bleachers. With the National Championship coming to Tampa too, I think it's a great thing that we play in the stadium that hosts title games. That's a great selling point to recruits, and is just overall really cool.

Have to agree. Don't see anything there that would somehow force anybody into a P6. Hem's idea about the top teams combining makes better sense except if you take the top football programs, you lose most the top basketball programs .... plus the travel would be killer, especially for the non-revenue sports. The teams that excelled in this "combined" conferece, would eventually leave for the P5... thus creating the same problem So let's say in theory after a few years USF, UCF, Boise, Fresno, and Cincy leave. At this point we would no longer really care but for the sake of the discussion here's what would happen. You add the best 5 teams between the MAC, Sunbelt, and C-USA, and then you are still left with a similar situation where 4 or 5 teams just by the sheer odds will win 10+ games. It would pull in great TV ratings too. You basically would have the "Cinderella Team" conference where one out of 24 will come out on top and either make the playoff or find themselves in a great bowl game. On top of that they will then be put firmly on the radar of the P5 conferences to now get in. People love that stuff. That's a big part of the reason why the NCAA basketball tourney does so well.

Nope. I am pretty sure having "The Team" on the back of our jerseys was fueled though. That's the kind of "brilliant" idea that stoners regularly come up with. The idea just came about from looking at looking at the landscape of college football. The ACC and SEC were both the 1st leagues to go to 14 teams. By no coincidence did they have the two teams in the championship game. Auburn got into the title game with 2 losses over a 1 loss Michigan State team. That happened because Michigan State had a "weaker" schedule. If Nebraska and Iowa though each had a win more because they beat up on Rutgers or Maryland, then Michigan State would have gotten in the title game. Then I thought about the old Big East. Was it really that bad? Maybe. But the fact that it was an 8 team league that cannibalized itself year in and year out did not help at all. In my opinion it's actually the main reason why it folded. If the Big East had added a bunch of C-USA teams years ago and teams like Pitt and Syracuse had some teams to feast on every year they would have stayed. Instead they figured "If we are going to be bottom feeders, might as well be bottom feeders in the ACC." The common thread to me seems to be that if the Non-P5 conferences want to force their way into the playoff discussion then they need to do something radical that involves a ton of teams. Essentially stack the deck with so many cards that the odds are in your favor a few of those cards will be great. It could happen, and if after everything is said and done a 10-2 team wins a 24 team conference, then they will get into the Cotton, Fiesta, or Orange Bowl and miss out on the playoff. It's still much better though then having an AAC team potentially go 12-0 and still be left out of the playoff. It's also better then having a 8-5 or 9-4 team reaching a "BCS" bowl like we had with UConn a few years ago which actually did more harm for the league then good. Last year you would have had an 11-1 UCF vs. a 11-1 Fresno State, and since the S.O.S. would have been better, it would have been about #9 vs. #13 or so. The winner of that has a legit case for the top 4.

The number of bad teams though is irrelevant, all that matters is the number of good teams. Just look at the college football landscape right now. ACC - 3 teams won 10+ games last year. 9 teams were 7-6 or worse. The conference overall was pretty bad, but none of that mattered because 1 team (FSU) was able to run through all of the weak teams, and then had a couple of decent wins over Clemson and Duke, who got their wins by beating on the bad teams. Big 10 - Same Deal. 2 10 game winners. 8 teams were 8-5 or worse. They got 2 teams into BCS games. Nobody cares if Purdue, Illinois, and Indiana suck, they care that Michigan State and Ohio State were both had alot of wins. Now they just added Rutgers and Maryland who will be bottom feeders, which most people say is a waste of time, but by the end of the year when teams like Nebraska and Wisconsin have 10 wins instead of 9 because they faced them, people will overlook it and say they are a strong conference. SEC - 14 team conference. 7 9+ game winners. 7 8-game or less winners. Everyone calls it a great conference. Why? Because there are alot of teams who won alot of games. And alot of those teams wins were against teams that suck. But no one cares, to the point where Auburn with 2 losses got into the title game over a 1 loss Michigan State team. And how did that happen? Because they essentially played and won 2 playoff games in a row at the end of the year against Bama and Mizzou. This doesn't happen though if the SEC doesn't have 14 teams because Mizzou wouldn't exist and then East and West would have beat up on eachother more during the year. What was the biggest problem with the Big East year in and year out. It was an 8 team conference year in and year out that essentially slaughtered itself, and we always ended up with a champ with 2 or 3 losses. This led to everyone making a joke out of the Big East. If the old Big East added 6 random C-USA teams, which led to West Virginia, USF, and Cincy having 10 win seasons year in and year out, people would be calling the Big East a solid conference. The reality about College Football is that you need garbage teams in your conference, to make the good ones look even better. If you have a 24 team conference where 6 teams a season win 10 games, and at the end you have a 12-0 vs. and 11-1, that's going to be great for the conference regardless if the majority of those wins were against garbage teams.

The question is how does Mega Conference make the most of it over the position we're in right now? Haven't seen a really compelling argument ... The whole point of my idea is that with 24 teams and essentially a 4 team playoff within the conference at the end of the season, you would be left with one team that is going to look very strong, and have a legitimate shot at making the playoff. The winner of the conference would have beaten a 9 - 10 win team in week 11 and then the conference championship game would have two teams face off that both have 10 or 11 wins. Whoever wins that game then will have no less then 2 very strong wins to help their ranking placement, and most likely 1 or 2 other very good wins along the way. In the AAC's current form, even if the winner of the conference is undefeated, they aren't going to make the playoff unless everyone else is sitting on 2 losses, and even then it's not a lock. Same goes for the Mountain West. Together though, it would be tough to keep the team that was able to be the winner of a 24 team conference out of the playoff. That's the sole reason why I think this should happen. If the P5 is going to create a system that will exclude the other conferences, then the other conferences have to do something to put themselves back into the conversation.

I posted a little on this in another thread but felt that it deserved it's own, to see what you guys all thought. The P5 conferences have essentially rigged the game so that they will get all 4 playoff spots every year. That's pretty much a fact. An undefeated Mountain West or AAC team would have a chance but would most likely get left off in favor of a 1 loss SEC or PAC-12 team. That's just the reality of the current situation, mostly because of the differing strength of schedules. Right now I think it's fair to say that out of the 5 non-P5 conferences the AAC and Mountain West are clearly better then the MAC, Sunbelt, and C-USA. Both the AAC and Mountain West on a yearly basis produce atleast a few extremely good teams and both usually end up with 1 or 2 ranked each, which leads me to my point. Merge together, become the 1st Mega-Conference, and force yourself into being the P6. Essentially with 24 teams you would create 2 conferences, each with 2 6-team divisions where each team in the division plays the other ones every year (5 games), and then you play one from each other division each year as well (3 games). Additional each team plays THREE out of conference games. That totals 11 games. The 12th game will have the #1 of each division face off with the #1 of the other division in the same conference, essentially in a playoff. #2 would also face #2, #3 would face #3, and so on, so that all of those teams get their full 12 games as well. Then during conference championship week the winners of the 1st place games would go on to face each other. Whoever comes out on top after all of that is going to be undefeated or have 1 loss with multiple quality wins. GUARANTEED. The benefits on top of that would also be huge. - Boise and Fresno fans would now have interest in UCF and Cincy games and vice versa. Essentially the 1st true nationwide conference. - A football conference with games going on from 1PM to 1 AM. Constant Coverage. - Basketball would benefit tremendously. The Mountain West and AAC are usually good for about 7 bids. Together they would be a force. - Enough money to potentially create a new Network of our own for TV. I know this post has been a little long, but I just wanted to put the idea out there. I have seen alot of doom and gloom after the NCAA made their P5 ruling, and it does look bleak, but I really think there is an obvious solution sitting right in front of everyone's faces that we aren't seeing. Aresco keeps talking about being proactive, and to me this would be the most proactive thing he could possibly do.

The article makes some interesting points, and I agree that ESPN really wants the AAC to do well, but not for the reasons the article states. The articles entire premise is that ESPN wants an AAC team instead of a MAC team in the New Year's day game because of an 11% ratings spike. That's really reaching. An 11% increase for one game is nice, but in the whole scheme of things means very little. ESPN wants the AAC to do really well, and specifically the teams with potentially huge markets (USF, UCF, Cincy, ECU), because then those teams will be added to P5 conferences later on. Lets say UCF and USF gets added to the Big XII. Now they will recruit better, will both see a massive attendance spike just from the difference in who they are playing (Texas and Oklahoma instead of Tulsa and SMU), and both are in huge football markets that would only get bigger. You just have to look at the Mountain West of about 5 years ago to see what can happen. You can't say the same for teams in the MAC, C-USA, and Sunbelt. Not a single team in any of those conferences would have any chance of bring able to bring in enough money to interest a P5 conference, except MAYBE and it's a big MAYBE Marshall. Personally this is why I have said that the AAC and Mountain West should be proactive and create the nations 1st Mega-Conference of 24 teams and essential force their way into being the P6 conference. The benefits for both would be off the charts. - The top team out of 24 would most likely be undefeated or have 1 loss and would have a great chance at the playoff every year. - It would be the 1st conference that is Nationwide and could generate ratings where there shouldn't be any. Fresno State and Boise State fans would have a reason to watch USF and UCF, and vice versa. - Basketball would get a huge bump. Separately the Mountain West and AAC and decently strong. Together they would be a top 3 conference. An AAC / Mountain West merger would be the best and maybe only way for those 24 schools to give a big F-U to the P5 conferences, and it would work.

E. And other relevant factors such as key injuries. Is that some kind of joke? I know it's not but seriously. So if let's say Winston goes down with an Injury and he is out for 6 weeks, and in that time Florida State loses two games and once he returns they win the rest of them, they will have grounds to put FSU in the title game. That would be beyond nice to have in the NFL. "Hey Doug Martin got hurt and he is the Bucs best offensive weapon, so let's give them an extra win because they would have gotten it with him." "Aaron Rodgers got hurt for 6 weeks and you lost 4 games? No biggie, here's that 1st round bye that you would have earned had he have been there." And College Football officials are wondering why their ratings and ticket sales have been dropping like a rock. LMAO. The day we or any other AAC team for that matter goes undefeated and gets kept out in favor of another team that had some injuries early, I will be done watching any and all college football.

I'm a delivery driver too, and I had to turn it off today when Mark Ryan was talking about the SEC Network. The guy is on there saying how it is and will be the greatest thing to every happen to college athletics and will revolutionize college sports. Come on now, the Big 10 has had a network for years now and it hasn't changed jack squat. It's just like all of the other excessive TV stations where they get the football games like Penn St. vs. Indiana that no one really cares about, and then they show all of the B and C level sports all year that nobody every watches. My honest guess though is that Lighthall and Pawlowski will end up getting the primetime 3 - 7 slot eventually though. Both are much more knowledgeable about the hometown teams then Booger (who admittedly knows next to nothing about any sport but football) and Ryan (who just makes up crap out of thin air constantly.), and take a positive approach to the hometown teams until they actually start losing. Bulls and Bucs fans have had to deal with enough losing, it's nice when in the offseason we can just be 0-0 again and not have to feel like loser fans, because usually once the season starts it ends up that way anyways.

Didn't Bench also have the top 3 receivers for the spring game? That's pretty much why just flat out comparing White and Bench's spring game numbers is completely pointless. Mark Sanchez just went 11 for 12 with 2 TD's and about 170+ yards in tonights pre-season game and Nick Foles played poorly. Does it now mean Sanchez should start? Nope. He did that with the backups. Still a nice outing but you really can't take too much from it. The #1 thing I took from the spring game this year that left a positive impact on me was the pacing by both QB's. Both were getting their plays in quickly and snapping the ball with 8 to 15 seconds left on the clock, and both knew where the 1st guy in the progression was going to me immediately. That was a good sign.

I have to agree with you there. I don't have any problem watching P5 football because some of the games like Auburn v. Bama last year are some of the most exciting games to watch in all of sports. I have family that lives in Eugene, Oregon too so the Ducks have become my #2 team when watching College Football. The main problem I have is the unnecessary elitism. As a fan of an AAC / old Big East team, I already know that we are on a lower tier as the SEC, Big 10, etc, and honestly I really don't care. I love watching USF football. Whether they play for the Sun-Belt or SEC that's not going to change. What can change though is whether I choose to watch teams like LSU, Alabama, Texas, and Stanford, because although the games are often good, I have zero emotional attachment to them and whether I watch them or not is irrelevant. It's not like the NFL (I'm a Jets fan), so I may tune in to watch Patriots v. Dolphins, or Bengals v. Chargers because the results of those games can have a direct impact on my own team. If LSU goes 11-1 next year it has zero effect on what happens to USF. None. So if people like Booger are a**holes and trash my team and conference, then naturally I will be less likely to watch LSU games because I don't want to be a part of that elitist garbage. When I hear coaches though like Charlie Strong say that P5 teams should continue to play non-P5 schools because it is beneficial to everyone, then I may be inclined to watch a few more Longhorn games. The "Experts" have been wondering why College Football ratings are going down at a rapid pace, and the answer is right in front of their noses, they just refuse to accept it. When you try to cut conferences and teams out from the highest level of college football, you are also cutting out their fans. It's that simple. Guy's like Booger are the worst of the worst when it comes to this and I hope in the future when SEC ratings hit all time lows they start to realize it.

Titus is a pretty underrated wrestler. Extremely strong and does a pretty decent job playing up to the crowd. Sadly though the WWE rarely if ever gives black wrestlers a push to the upper part of the card. The Rock is still the only black WWE champion ever, and he is half-samoan and comes from a famous wrestling family so that didn't hurt.

The best thing they can do with Flowers is redshirt him and have him learn from the sideline for the next 2 seasons. In High School he showed some great ability to make plays with his legs but was only a 50 percent passer. From what I have heard on here his arm strength does not look very good right now but in 2 years that could be a completely different story. I am just glad to hear that both White and Bench look miles ahead of where they were last year. Alot of that stems from much better offensive line play though. It's hard for young guys to learn an offense and make their reads when they are constantly on their back.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11320309/majority-power-five-coaches-want-power-five-only-schedules By the way here's the list of coaches that want there to be P5 only schedules and the ones that think that is wrong, just so everyone knows what side of the fence people are on. I think it's great though that coaches such as Charlie Strong, Brian Kelly, Urban Meyer, Gary Patterson all come from smaller schools and think the P5 only schedules are wrong. The one that pretty much enrages me though is Chris Peterson. Seriously, The guy made a name and a career for himself at Boise State by beating a whole ton of P5 conference schools, and he thinks the P5 teams should only face eachother. Lost a ton of respect for him after seeing this.

I honestly see it the other way around. The state of Florida is heavily invested in UF, FSU, and Miami which are all P5, but they are also heavily invested in USF ,UCF, FAU, and FIU. Same goes for a lot of other states like Ohio and Texas with other state schools in smaller conferences. What's more likely is that congress will way that conferences can make their own rules, but every conference has to be allowed to make their own rules.

Honestly I don't think this is as big of a deal as it's being made out to be for a few reasons. 1. The P5 schools already have a massive advantage over the schools from the other conferences. USF this year had the best recruiting class out of all of the Non-P5 schools in the country and we were ranked about 39th to 43rd depending on where you look. Having the ability to now give the players "officially" up to $5,000 each per year and having locked in scholarships for 4 years is not going to bury the lower teams because quite frankly they are already buried. Usually by the end of the season there are 3 or 4 teams from Non-P5 conferences in the top 25 rankings, and it will most likely stay that way anyways. The only difference now is that P5 schools can now do it legally instead of getting sanctions against them because let's be honest, they were already doing this. Everyone keeps saying "The rich are going to get richer." but I just don't see it making a huge difference. Maybe a total of 25 - 30 3-star recruits around the country go to a P5 school instead of a different one but there were only a few legitimate options in the non-P5 schools anyways. 2. The P5 schools are still going to play schools from lower conferences. Just look at Florida's OOC schedule this year. Idaho, Eastern Michigan, Eastern Kentucky, FSU. Or Bama's, West Virginia, FAU, Southern Miss, Western Carolina. These schools make sure to schedule atleast 3 games per year as automatic wins, and basically bye weeks where they have to play. There is zero chance whatsoever that all of a sudden Florida is going to replace those awful teams with 3 P5 teams. Zero. On top of that teams like Florida and Bama stack their schedule to make sure they play 8 home games per season. If they start facing other P5 teams they will lose atleast 1 home game, and there is no chance that will happen. 3. The AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sunbelt will all be allowed to make their own rules within a year or two. There is absolutely no way the NCAA will be able to hold the other conferences to their set of rules, while they just allowed the other conferences to do whatever they want. No Chance. It won't hold up in the court system either. This is really the biggest reason why everyone needs to calm down about all of this. Aresco can't do anything to stop the P5 schools from making their own rules, but theres no doubt in my mind that he will say that the AAC can make it's own rules too. If the P5 conferences then decide to vote against it then it's an easy anti-trust lawsuit because it will be clear that they are just trying to squeeze everyone else out, instead of trying to make their own conferences better. 4. The P5 schools by doing this are about to destroy college footballs popularity and their own bank accounts. 5 years ago college football was close to 15% of Americans favorite sport to watch. The polls that came out earlier this year had it down to 11%. College Football attendance last season was the lowest it has been in a long time. TV ratings overall were also way down. Now by alienating fans of the non-P5 schools as well as alienating fans who like to watch "true amateur sports.", they are just going to keep losing viewers. I really don't think this is the "rich keep getting richer", it's closer to the college football greed bubble is about to burst. 5. I have a gut feeling that the Non-P5 schools may call the bluff like WWMJD is saying. America loves rooting for the little guy. It's just always been that way. If the Non-P5 schools spit it make in the P5 schools face and drag this out publicly it will help the image of those conferences and the schools in them. It's a pretty easy sales pitch to recruits actually. "Do you want to play for a school that hires mercenaries and just want you to make them millions of dollars, or do you want to come to a school that wants YOU as part of our family where we have a chance to go out and shut those mercenary teams down." It sounds corny but when you are pitching that to a 17 year old kid and their parents it will make a big impact.

It will be interesting to see if Harlan goes the route of trying to face teams that we will have a very realistic shot at beating (West VIrginia, TCU, Kansas, Iowa State, Kentucky, Mississippi St.) but may not have much of an impact on the program overall if we win, or if he will try to schedule some teams that we will be heavy underdogs against (Oklahoma, Bama, LSU, Florida State), but if we were ever to win one it would make USF football nationally relevant again. Personally I would be ok with it either way, but I lean a little bit towards facing some of the top teams in the country. It's a great recruiting sell for Taggart to use, and if this programs goal is to truely eventually compete for national titles then there is no other way to do that then playing atleast one top 10 team during the season. An undefeated AAC season with a couple of wins over West VIrginia and Miami is most likely not getting us into the playoff.

Lmao, not going to happen. All FCS teams are not created equally, even though that's what most FBS fans believe. McNeese St. ended the year as the #11 ranked FCS team. We shouldn't have lost as badly too them as we did, but the reality is that they are a pretty good team and them beating us really shouldn't have been that shocking. The score was what shocked me the most. Western Carolina went 2-10 and it's only wins were against a D-III team, which is basically just a group of dudebros playing for a college, and against Elon who also went 2-10. If Coach T doesn't beat this team by atleast 28 points I won't be happy.

I'm just being honest about the bowl situation. I remember when we played NIU in some Canadian Bowl and when we played Memphis in the St. Pete bowl, I didn't even both watching. Those games got me less pumped up then most of the entire schedule those years. The only thing I like about reaching a bowl like those is that it gives the team an extra 2 - 4 weeks of practice time and an extra game of experience, which in theory is something they could build on. And yes I am beyond pumped for football this year. I have focused most of my attention so far on my Jets (who I have a feeling are going to be way better then expected.) and a little bit on the Bucs (who will be better, but not quite ready to win alot yet.), but I am ready for college football camp to start, no doubt. The coverage, or lack-there-of of this football team right now though is pretty disheartening. I seem to remember 98.7 The Fan being created with the idea that it would be the USF station, and the only USF news or talk we ever get on there is when Taggart comes on, and they ask him the same generic questions every time. My favorite thing in the last few weeks though is when Booger and Ryan did a confidence factor from 1 being the worst to 10 being the best of the coaches in the state of Florida, and Ryan gave Taggart a three and Muschamp a seven, with his reasoning being that Taggart lost to a D-2 team so he has no faith in him.. Apparently Georgia Southern though is now an SEC power so losing to them, late in the season is no big deal. He also said he doesn't think Taggart has been recruiting Florida enough. I usually like Ryan but he has no clue when it comes to USF at all.