MikeG

I can't make it tonight. Gene--- take your camera for some good shots buddy

We went from having 9 guys in 2002, to 2 guys in 2003, to no guys in 2004 participating in this game. That's a shame-- I liked going to this event. http://fcsports.collegesports.com/sports/s-grid/content/010505aac.html

Fisher may be back as well.

I can't recall but is that a better rating for USF compared to last season?

Food for thought-- The temporary football stands they used fo the Gridiron Classic last year at The Villages were not too bad. They accomodated 15K and were packed. One endzone was available to add to that number. UCF could play on a field like that if the Citrus Bowl is down for repairs. They could also just put one up on their own grounds and replace sections as they finished their final product. The stell structure they are referring to sounds like it takes very little time to construct. As for the 7 years or so prediction-- that seems reasonable. We were saying no sooner than 10 years from now but that was 3 or 4 years ago. I love RJS-- it is an ideal place to play in terms of facilities. One thing you had better get used to (and NOT ***** about) is that there won't be two jumbo trons to watch replays on with an on campus stadium short of a miracle. We'll be lucky to have one at all probably. But it is definitely doable for UCF (and highly needed compared to USF) as well as USF. Fortunately, we can focus our cash on other needs in the short term. But my guess is that part of Doug Woolards master plan before he leaves here is to give USF it's own stadium. I see him being at USF for 10 years or so-- he did a similar stretch at SLU. So far-- I've been happy with the way things are turning out under his command. Of course-- you don't hear many of the same folks who berated him non-stop about the schedule et al-- coming forward and recanting their cries of "the sky is falling".

Yeah-- that system is hooorrrible. All it accomplished was a national championship last year. It definitely needs to be fixed and pronto.

UAB 1 Leather 24 Leather 9 75%

yep-- I'll be there to visit the brother. I'll call the folks out there when I get into town.

I have been to EVERY home game since inception with one exception (Jacksonville State-- home opener). I have also been to MANY road games. I am not ashamed of the play on the field. I know those kids try their hardest to win games. Sometimes they don't have the talent or get the breaks or make mistakes. They are not robots or professionals-- they are students who happen to play football. I feel fortunate to even have a football team since there was none when I went to school. So you won't get any apologies from me for how other people act when a team loses. I am there-- watching and cheering for my team. That is how I operate. Sure-- I could be upset by empty stands or perceptions of some people who want to tell my school sucks because the crowd was small or non-existent. Then again-- many of those people would have said something derogatory about my school even if we never fielded a team. I like playing at Raymond James. I like the comfort level. I like the amenities of two giant screens for replays. I like that we don't have some giant debt to service hanging over the programs head. I don't concern myself over who gets my money when I buy a beer. I am there to watch players I have been watching since they took the field the first time. Players who I have been fortunate enough to either meet or meet their parents or just know because I care about them. And here is the funny part. I don't really care what others think about my opinion on this matter. Yet many will claim that I am telling them how to be a fan or making "excuses" for something, or read something else into my statements on this board. Frankly, the arguments and positions of some people on this board do get a tad annoying to me as I'm sure mine do them. But if this was a big love fest of liked minded individuals, it would not be a fan message board. Many people have a passion for this school and our football team. I admire that passion and try my best to do what I can for my school-- within reason. Sitting through a game against a top 20 team in a year when my team is down in the dumps and rebuilding isn't exactly the most fun in the world-- but I wouldn't miss it. But that is me (and many of us here). That is just how I operate. And I believe I mentioned this tens of times before but I wondered what would happen when the day finally came-- the day I dreaded-- the day the fans revolted against a team that was bound to fail at some point. And true to form--- it has happened-- our fans are upset and searching for answers. They don't want to deal with the rebuild-- they want to solve it-- as if it is some riddle. There is no riddle when it comes to attendance. I've heard all the arguments about WHY the crowd was so small for the past two games. Many are quite valid, including the indifference by fans to a losing program. Regardless of what is hurting attendance-- winning in and of itself is not the answer either. You just have to love the Bulls unconditionally. But there is next year. There will always be next year (until I die). Hang tough Bull fans--- this too shall pass-- maybe sooner than later, but eventually. That's all I have to say to wrap up this season. I'll see you in August.

The CUSA thing is OVER. Let's fly the Big East flags starting today. I fear that fan apathy will not help today in filling the stadium. I've seen it from many Bull fans I know already ("Hmmm.... well I do have a lot of yard work to get done so maybe I'll just watch this one on TV instead"--- disgusting). JUST REMEMBER THIS--- this is the LAST Bulls game you can go to until SEPTEMBER 2005! Maybe the opponent will bring us some casual fan interest.

If Meyer does not win an SEC title within 2 years, he will be gone as well. Gator expectations are as lofty as Nebraska supporters. And they are LOADED with talent and will continue to get the talent. Unlike Zook-- who was left a pretty empty cabinet by SS who admittedly did not like the recruiting portion of the job-- Meyer inherits a very deep team and will not face the SS comparisons that Zook also had to deal with. Zook wasn't the worlds best coach but he is an excellent recruiter.

The true measure of faith is how one deals with adversity. If you expected the Bulls to never face it, you missed out on the obvious. Everything is life involves some sort of roller coaster ride. If you are fortunate the ride is long, has more ups than downs, and you use those downs to understand and appreciate the ups.

Check the article.... http://bulls.tbo.com/bulls/MGBRYRMB82E.html would impact 2006-2008 seasons but it's not final just yet, and neither are the details.

I think I understand what this thread is really about. Most of us are smart enough to realize these early wins against the cupcakes are a given. We also realize that this team will get beat quite a bit this year no matter how many of these players are left by seasons end. So we have a couple of posters who want to plant the seed early (for whatever reason-- mostly about Seth is my guess) that the program is bad shape and it is all Coach Mac's fault for his methods. When the season ends or as it progresses and we start seeing these expected losses-- the same nay sayers will come in a tell us how correct they were about Coach Mac etc. They will use the teams results to PROVE some other unrelated point that is just part of the normal growing pains of putting in a newer, stricter, better disciplined team. My won't they look so intelligent compared to all us so-called Coach Mac backers. The reality is that we are backing the coach because it is NORMAL to give a coach some time to put his system in place. We expect some rough waters and if those waters continue to be bumpy-- well sure-- we have to look in another direction. These guys would have you believe that anything they can point to as "odd" is an indicator that the whole situation is in chaos. And this may be true. They don't know any more than we do but choose to never give the coach much of a chance to even implement his system. The only problem I have with this is having to wade through this tripe for the next 5 or 6 months. Short of a winning season-- nothing will give these folks any satisfaction. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy to say the coach is bad while he is trying to simply build a program. I know we all want to win everything, everytime-- but is it fair to simply bash the crap out of a coach until he has some time under his belt. That was my main concern with Beastie's assertions last year and even before then. None of this is meant to be a slam on anyones posts here-- just my observation of some of the opinions and methods some posters use to try to influence the lemmings. Good luck with that. However it turns out, as long as we all cheer the Bulls in whatever way we can muster-- at least we are still trying to pull in the same direction. Nothing would please all of us more to see the Bulls continue to compete strong this year-- even against the teams we (on paper) have no business even being in the same gym with this season.

Let's not forget we're talkng about a true freshman playing basketball here. How many true freshmen get tons of minutes on a team that is not in rebuilding mode? Mistake or not-- the outcome has plenty of twists and turns remaining for this young guy. I'll reserve judgement on his UF future for the future. I agree he would be a star at USF possibly-- but it is his decision so maybe we should just let it go already.

The truth is that the weak link was Cozey Coleman who failed to pinch down correctly on his center during those snaps. Special teams kicking requires four elements in my opinion: Line blocking long snapping proper placement and the kick itself. The snapping and blocking elements have been shakey at best this year for the Bucs. The Bucs let go the only thing that was giving them a solid play on that unit and as a result, Gramatica is suffering-- perhaps to the point of losing his job as well. All so Mr. Genius Gruden can save a roster spot for some butthead like Tim Brown who can't even be bothered to dive for the football in a hail mary situation (in fact, he threw his arms backward). Oh well-- the Bucs deserved what they are getting in those terms and there are many other stories about what they are doing wrong day after day.

Pitt 42 USF 14 278 yards Hall sad but true...

Thankfully, the team did not give up at any point this year. I can't say the same about some of our fans. The team is playing for their own pride every game-- doing their very best to try to make us proud. Anyone who claims they are doing anything less than trying their best just doesn't understand athletics. Balls get dropped, fumbled, intercepted. Tackles get missed. It is a game, not a certainty. You can coach a player to the be the very best they can be BUT in the end, the other player may just be better than that effort. Memphis, Louisville, USC, Cinci, USM, and even Army weren't going to let us just win without a struggle. The games we did win (TCU, UAB especially) weren't handed to us and could have also been lost. But the guys on the team NEVER QUIT. They didn't go to UAB and look at the line and say-- "hmmm-- we will lose this game" and proceed to just go through the motions. They battled-- just as hard as they battled in every game. Sometimes your best is NOT good enough. Sometimes you can't bring your best or perform at your peak. If I were one of those young men and saw the low turnout and so-so fan support we gave them on Saturday, it would not have inspired me. Imagine that stadium with another 10K fans screaming for their team-- that would have been a big boost to the team. Good letter CB.

Anyone who thought this season was going to be some miracle finish after we lost to Army is a bit dilusional. Yeah-- it could have happened and I know many of us always hope for the best. But we will always have people on this board who want to point out the obvious. It was a down year and in a down year you have trouble on defense, at QB, you name it-- there are holes to fill. What many fail to take into account is that we used very young guys to fill those holes and the experience they gained will have future payoffs. And when we start winning again, the same brilliant posters we see now will tell us again about the obvious-- that we have a great defense ro taht our new QB is the answer or that our great attendance is because we are winning. We can gripe all we want about how many people showed for a T-Day weekend game but it seems fairly obvious why we had low turnout (and I won't go over these points again). The same people who expressed bad thoughts about our team whenever we don't win pile on whenever they see other things they can point to-- USF didn't do a good job advertising this game-- etc. Bottom line to me is that the game was available on TV and if you had relatives in town that you hadn't seen in a year-- well-- would you trek down to the stadium at 8am and drag them along or try not to rock the boat and just watch the game on the tube? I don't know-- there are many things we can say are not right about USF football now because we are not winning like we used to and our fan base seems like it is petering out. But I think we all know that USF is just experiencing some serious growing pains. We don't have the team we did in 2002-- plain and simple-- but that doesn't mean we aren't on track to repeat that type of success soon. Those teams we beat were in down years during our up years. That will happen again-- it is how college football works if you stick with your plan and continue to do things the right way. It won't always be perfect, especially for a team that is only in its 8th year of even fielding a team. Yes-- we are a school with over 40K students on the rolls. That doesn't automatically mean we have the alumni base, fan base, MONEY, respect, tradition, or any of the other intangibles of other teams with similar sized institutions. Our school is 44 years old technically (classes first held in 1960). Unless we all pitch in and continue to support the school and help PROMOTE it ourselves, it will never reach the levels we all would like to see it reach. As for hoops-- I hope you are correct Terry. But I think we all realize that beating the teams we play early isn't any sort of indicator of how the whole season is going to pan out.

UCF fans need to check themselves. If your biggest contribution to this board is arguing that our attendance stats are inflated-- umm-- who gives a crap? You go from saying it was more like 15k, then you say it was more like 10K, then you say it was about 8K. Whatever-- make yourself feel better by living vicariously through our least attended game of the season. Playing on Thanksgiving weekend was the main problem. Playing after our bowl hopes were pretty much dashed didn't help either. But don't need to make excuses. Our attendance numbers are based on people through the turnstyles which is controlled by the TSA-- NOT on some ticket sales numbers or what you think of the crowd in the seats. Attendance was DISMAL for this game-- that is agreed. What you fail to understand is that it takes quite a large turnout-- around 35K+ to make the lower bowl look even close to full. So when we only get 20K through the gates, it will look even worse. Now go back to your POS team and lick your own wounds.

Thanksgiving weekend is a tough sell on our already tenuous connection to the Bulls fan in general. Hard to just point out the students as the culprit when you had plenty of empty seats EVERYWHERE for this game. I think we need to move on and stop worrying about how many people got to see that clunker. This season is pretty much toast. If anything, having the Pitt game in December will serve as the closest call USF has to a bowl game atmosphere. I expect the Pitt fans to show up in big numbers as they need this game to complete their Big East conference championship. The strange thing is that USF might actually pull out a win against them and that would HURT the Big East somewhat and give the ESPN goon squad more fooder to throw at the "weak" Big East. I doubt we have to worry too hard about USF winning next week and most fans have realistic expectations along those lines. Anything is possible I suppose and I'll be there. But I won't bother worrying about who didn't go-- if they choose to stay home, that is their business. Truth be told-- I am not looking forward to next week either at this point. Winning against Pitt would be like putting lipstick on a pig of a season.

We agree that this is Leavitts call regardless. What I may not have conveyed is that I am only asking that fans give BF the same consideration you would give anyone else. Odds are slim that he can even come back for starters so those fans would be taking a very slight risk by acting more less decent to this individual. You can HATE how he acts all you want but had he never played for USF, you would never have given the slightest care what was going on simply because you would have never known about his situation. A USF star player is somewhat famous. And for this reason, any mistake they make is suddenly played out in the press like some major news story. Meanwhile-- 1000's of dead beat dads (and worse) walk the streets in anonymity. That is simply my opinion-- not an attack on anyone in particular.... and I cannot stand having to write that this is an opinion because it should be UNDERSTOOD.

I'll leave that decision up to Leavitt-- and leave it at that. BF could come back and return kicks or any number of other things. The kid was there for us when we needed him and now that he needs us, we have fans who would rather trash him and blame him than just give him the same opportunity others get. I don't know where he fits exactly but like I said-- this is for CJL to decide. Our opinions will not be a factor at all. Odds are slim that the whole Florida Tropics BS is going to pan out to the positive side anyway. If that is true, I can see him playing a little arena ball-- the guy has got some serious ability. Undersized but plenty of ability.

Even nicer hearing his name called while getting all those tackles tonight.

USF 35 Cinci 34 425 yards Chambers