USFFan

Nice rundown, Jim. A few things, though... Notice that we're winless away from RJS this year? And that 4 of our remaining 6 games are on the road? That's a tough road to hoe. Also, notice how each of our final three opponents has the weekend off prior to facing us... I don't know, but that extra preparation time is a scary proposition... I might be biased, but I'm not convinced UConn is for real. That said, I'm kind of hoping that UConn wins on Friday. If Syracuse wins that game, I think they'll be favored at home against Rutgers (seriously did you see how bad they were in the 2nd half against Pitt?), at Pitt (who has to realize they're not going bowling with 4 losses already) and against Cincinnati, which would put them at 5-3 coming into our game in the Carrier Dome where, if I'm not mistaken, they're retiring Jim Brown's number. I'd really prefer that they drop their 4th game, thus knowing that, with trips to Notre Dame and Louisville, the season's over. USFFan

That's something that I think most people have missed. I know that many folks REALLY wanted to beat Miami. What would that have proven? That we could beat Miami, nothing more. However, a win or loss in the Orange Bowl will not impact our chances to win the Big East by one iota. If we manage to win the conference, we're going to a BCS bowl (Orange? Fiesta?). If we do that, I won't for one minute worry about "what would have happened if we'd beaten Miami." Therefore, I'm actually glad that we didn't show Pittsburgh, West Virginia or any of our other conference foes anything other than that we've got a defense that can stand toe-to-toe with Miami in the Orange Bowl. And, if PJ guides this team to a Big East title in his junior year, I hope somebody drudges up some of these threads and reminds some of our "fans" that they can be real assclowns. USFFan

That's the thing that most people haven't considered. Here's Drew Weatherford's stats from the Miami game: 24 attempts 7 completions 67 yards 0 TD's 1 Int Pretty brutal, right? But we can all agree that Weatherford's not a horrible quarterback. In fact, over the next 3 games, including Boston College and Syracuse, here's how his average numbers look: 33.7 attempts 21 completions 273 yards 2.3 TD's 1 Int Sometimes I see stuff written by Bulls "fans" and feel ashamed. USFFan

I disagree with Beastiebull. I was at both the Orange Bowl and Legion Field, and I thought Legion was much worse. Plus, the Bama fans were much bigger jerks to me than the Miami fans. Maybe a difference is that I didn't sit in the USF section, but rather sat with some other friends of mine in section X. However, I had no line going to the bathroom, I went to buy a soda at halftime and found four people in front of me at the concession stand. Legion Field had more amenities (better sound system and scoreboard, for example), but between the horrible restroom and concession stand situation and the poorly designed entrance to the seats, I'd have to say the Orange Bowl is better. FWIW, most of the classic stadiums are not as great as people make them out to be. For example, the Rose Bowl is a piece of crap, too. Lousy bleachers, only a few ways into the seats... just poorly designed. And yet people go because of the atmosphere. I've been to many stadiums and I think that the closed end of the Orange Bowl is among the loudest and most intimidating in either college or pro football. USFFan

I went to vote and the site said the round was over. She finished in 3rd place... :-[ USFFan

I think this is wrong. Expanding by 4 teams just to get a championship game is not going to raise enough money to counteract the dilution of the BCS money. I think if the well-rumored Big East split happens, then the football schools will add one more school (probably Memphis) to make a 9 team conference for all sports. That gives you 8 football games and 16 basketball games per year. USFFan

Top ranked? Apparently the same guy who counts our attendance also reads the rankings... USFFan

Heh. I thought this had something to do with the White House... USFFan

He's posted a couple of times on the Conference USA site today. Funny how he seems to have lost his bookmark to this site. Remember how we were going to have such a horrible offensive line? I guess somebody can't admit when they're wrong... USFFan

No doubt. I'm sitting with a couple of season ticket holders who have a buddy who's not going to the game. It'll also be hard to show any USF presence if we're all wearing green... USFFan

That's you. Many others are interested in seeing the game, but will gladly sit at home and watch it for free. If it puts an extra 500 people in the stands, it's a good thing. Besides, we all know it'll be rebroadcast. Want to see it live? Get out there and support USF. USFFan

1-800-DIRECTV... USFFan

Frankly, I'm GLAD this game's not going to be readily available on TV in Tampa. People shouldn't be sitting at home watching this game. Stop giving away the product and get people in the stands. USFFan

Sounds an awful lot like excuse-making to me... http://www.ucfnews.com/media/paper174/news/2005/09/22/Opinions/True-Cowardice.Is.Throwing.Journalistic.Integrity.Away-993755.shtml USFFan

Well, that was intended to be after the C-USA exit agreement was satisfied.  I thought it was for 4 games (taking us through 2008 ). USFFan

Let's face it, though, we will continue to play UCF until we have fulfilled our obligation to Conference USA that allowed us out without having to pay money to join the Big East.  As long as that obligation hasn't been satisfied, it makes more sense to play UCF than any other school in Conference USA.  We have no desire to go back and subject ourselves to the crappy treatment we received in Hattiesburg, there's not enough tickets that could be sold for us to go back to UAB, Tulane will not even have a home field to play on for a long time, Memphis is too bitter about being snubbed by the Big East to want to play us any longer...  who's left?  I'd rather play UCF than ECU or Houston, and none of the new schools has any great burning desire to come to Tampa and play.  Now, as soon as that requirement is met, I fully expect that the next time Orsini calls Woolard it will sound something like this: Woolard's secretary:  Mr. Woolard, Steve Orsini's on the line Doug Woolard:  Steve, how are you? Steve Orsini:  Outstanding, Doug!  Listen, I was hoping we could start talking about extending the football series between you guys and us. DW: Sure, Steve!  We've got three weekends open in September of 2009, and we'd gladly have you guys over. SO: That sounds great.  By 2010, we should have our stadium built, so are there any weekends you're available in 2010? DW: There might be, Steve, but I don't think we have any intention of turning this into an annual home and home series.  We've got FIU scheduled for a 2 for 1, and we're talking with FAU about the same sort of arrangement. SO: Are you suggesting that we should be giving you two home games to get you to come to Orlando once? DW: Not necessarily.  We'd always welcome you to play over here.  Since you seem opposed to the idea of a 2 for 1, maybe we could do something like a 3 for 2 split. Click The ball would then be in UCF's court, but no matter how it would play out, it would be better for USF.  If UCF refuses to accept this deal, then at the very least it ends all of the crapola about how USF refuses to play them.  If they do, it crystallizes who is and should be driving these discussions.  Personally, I don't care which way it would go from there.  I would much rather build our OOC schedule by having an annual home game with FAMU, building 1 for 1's with nationally recognized BCS (Indiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma State), scheduling some 2 for 1's with FAU or FIU and maybe having an unbalanced schedule with a bigger name that doesn't get to Florida very often (Texas, Michigan, Penn State).  USFFan

I saw this guide by Syracuse fan TexanMark and thought it provided some great stuff for folks joining the Bulls on the road this year... http://syracuse.scout.com/3/BETailgateGuide.html USFFan

"USF waited to schedule us until they knew we would suck" or "USF waited until they knew they would win." The latter is funny if only because most of these same UCF fans "knew" UCF would kick our butts until about 7:20 pm on Saturday. The former is also full of crap. In the following article: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/332159911.html?MAC=c17fcd613c266535ca10fc6e8f6b6b0f&did=332159911&FMT=FT&FMTS=FT&date=May+3%2C+2003&author=PETE+YOUNG&pub=St.+Petersburg+Times&printformat=&desc=USF-UCF+comes+to+fruition the St. Pete Times reports on May 3, 2003 that this series between USF and UCF was agreed to in December, 2002. Even if you don't believe that, the article itself came out before the start of the 2003 season. At that point, UCF had just turned in a 7-5 record for 2002. Now, since you were coming off a winning record and everybody at UCF was convinced you were about to win the MAC, how exactly is it that USF knew you were going to suck more than a $10 hooker on the Orange Blossom Trail? USFFan

You know, I think you just hit the nail on the head. For years, the USF athletic department has done a good job of getting the important things done (conference affiliation, extending Leavitt's contract, etc.). However, they've never been particularly good at motivating the press to shed the program in a positive light. Meanwhile, if there's one thing UCF's been good at, it's been getting the press to do their bidding. Let's face it, Kruczek had folks like Bianchi eating out of his hand trying to force this game when we didn't have as many scholarships as they did. Now Orsini's doing the same thing. I'm waiting for him to hire Karl Rove. USF needs our own person working the media so that we get them actually behind us instead of waiting to pounce (Jerry Winters, Sami Al-Arian...). USFFan

Please check your messages... USFFan

As an out-of-towner, I'm getting accustomed to being able to read about the pontifications of Tampa's self-appointed sports expert... USFFan

Here's a question to go with your reality check... Hindsight's 20-20. We need to go 4-4 the rest of the way to qualify for a bowl. Does anybody rethink the Penn State and Miami games for games against, say, FAU and FIU? Is a potential bowl appearance worth the money and potential reward for playing a perennial power? USFFan

At the very least, he should have the cojones to come back and admit that he owes the USF OL a HUGE apology. All spring a summer long we had to hear how our OL was going to be terrible because we'd lost all of our senior leadership. Remind me to consider STK's talent evaluation sometime right after those people come back to Earth who left on the spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp comet... USFFan

Hightech, that .sig picture is hilarious. I hadn't noticed that that game was apparently played at the Citrus Bowl in EA's pix, though. Unfortunately, Hall won't be able to run them over there. I guess we'll have to rely on Ponton. USFFan

 This came from Knight fan on the rivals sight lol  Can you believe it ;D  They were saying how great they were when they played close to USC ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D http://ucf.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=71&tid=58354360&sid=&style=2 It's these types of quotes that cement in my mind why we should not be playing them. As we've said all along, it's a no-win situation in playing them as far as we're concerned. And this proves it. Win and "well, it doesn't matter because UCF sucks." Lose and we have to bear the myriad insults hurled at us. We gain nothing in beating them, so we shouldn't play them at all. Unless, of course, they're willing to accept a 2 for 1 deal... USFFan