BullyPulpit

Name one way in which USF's football program has "grown" in any appreciable way in the last 14 years? Aside from an indoor practice facility that was about a decade too late, we have stagnated and shriveled. Attendance is down. Season ticket holders are down. Our media deal is down. Our winning percentage is down. Local interest is down. Quality of opponent and conference is down. Our debt is about to increase substantially, so I guess there is that.

SMU didn't have to win anything first. 0 conference championships and a very similar record to USF over the past decade. SMU's leadership took the chance that I had been advocating for years. Take a reduced share and prove your worth to the conference. I hope everyone enjoys the on-campus stadium while playing the likes of UNT, Charlotte, and our new rival, FAU.

You have to begin to understand and appreciate the fact that the "chaos" of which you speak is coming to an end. We have missed out on the last 4 rounds of "chaos." There appears to be 1 round of "chaos" left. After that, we will be eternally relegated to irrelevancy. I will always cheer for USF athletics no matter what, but to say that my desire has shriveled along with our future prospects to play meaningful football games would be an understatement.

So what....do you really get excited about the prospect of playing Oregon State and Washington State? I sure don't. A rebuilt PAC with Stanford and Cal would have been much more enticing. OSU and WSU seem destined to land in the MWC now. There is no advantage to them going to the AAC.

Well, this makes the immediate future much bleaker. Just have to keep winning and hope that we can land somewhere when the major ACC programs eventually bolt.

We have 7 clear starters and everyone else is an OR. I understand surprising WKU a little bit, but I would like to see a little more certainty from CAG and staff in who they believe their guys are. Having fluidity at certain spots week-to-week is great but some more clarity would be nice.

To me, there is nothing in GB's resume that suggests that he will be successful running CAG's offense. Hooker completed **** near 70% of his passes with CAG. GB hasn't shown that ability. In a very small sample size BB has displayed that ability. I don't mind riding with GB through the first 3 games, but unless he surprises all of us, I fully expect BB to end up as the starting QB.

I like that, aside from WKU (who might just be a middling team this year) and Bama, our toughest matchups are in 9th and 11th games of the year. That will give this team a lot of time to find its footing and identity. Show well against WKU and, potentially, ever game aside from Bama is winnable. 6 to 8 wins this season. I am going to be positive about this until I have a clear reason not to be.

The caveat is USF performing well against WKU. I think the defense is going to be drastically improved. I'm expecting the defense to get into the 60's this season based upon the players that were brought in and the coaching staff. That alone, given this schedule, should get us to 6 wins with just an average offense.

Just looking at our schedule, it is crazy how easy it is. USF plays 1 or 2 games at most against teams viewed as being in the top 50 in the country. Here is the breakdown of the CBS Power Ranking and ESPN FPI for each opponent we face this season: Alabama - 5/2 UTSA - 31/61 WKU - 67/88 Memphis - 71/58 FAU - 80/82 UCONN - 100/119 Navy - 103/108 UAB - 105/78 Temple - 116/110 Rice - 112/107 Charlotte - 124/118 FAMU - FBS ESPN's FPI predicts us to go 5-7 (actually 5.2-6.8). If this team overachieves just a little bit, we are easily looking at 7+ wins. I'm officially excited for the season even if our schedule is a complete and total joke.

Everything starts with WKU. I love that the coaching staff has spent 2 weeks in game prep mode and the team should hit the ground running. If we are good enough to beat WKU, then we are sure as hell good enough to beat Rice, Navy, and UAB. That would setup a home matchup with FAU to potentially get to 6-1. If that happens, I would expect no worse than an 8-4 finish on the season. Of course, I have absolutely nothing to base this upon. We have no idea how either side of the ball is going to look, but if we go into WKU and beat them, there is no reason not to get optimistic for a great season and the type of turnaround that will have people saying that USF is back.

We don't know the response FSU received, especially given the uncertainty with their GoR. All of this is driven by ESPN/FOX and, to a lesser extent, CBS and NBC, and they will have the ultimate say in what college football becomes. I just view the financial model a little bit differently than you do. The SEC and B1G are already at 34 teams combined. Over the course of the next decade, there are likely to be programs in the Big 12 and ACC that see an increase in their stature. I could easily see 5 or 6 teams from the ACC and 5 or 6 from the Big 12 being deemed good enough to move up when all of this ultimately shakes out. Would have to also include Notre Dame. There will need to be more of a Mountain and Western presence. That would result in 45 to 47 teams. Sure, they could jettison some of the dead weight, that may happen, but that would really only entail Rutgers, Northwestern, and Vandy. I just have a hard time envisioning a scenario where they don't have at least 44 teams in those two conferences. None of it matters though. Time will tell.

Delusional birds of a feather....

You would actually be reducing the number of programs competing for upper tier athletes. There are certainly enough top-level QBs coming out of high school to find 54 decent starting QBs. You are comparing the NCAA to the NFL as if the level of play is equivalent.

Your reason is flawed. There are clearly not enough NFL caliber players to field 20 additional teams. Like any sport, there is a culling of the herd the higher up you go. The jump from high school to college and then from the college to the NFL results in a lot fewer quality players being available at each subsequent level. Hell, the NFL can't even get 30 guys that are good enough to play QB in their league as it is. There are maybe 20 to 24 NFL quality QBs in the league, the others are just filler.

I should have added that college football is inherently different than the NFL given the connections and ties that alumni have to each school. Every year, these schools are admitting another 5,000 to 10,000 potential new fans. College football is a lot less reliant upon market size than is the NFL. Also, the NFL would have an issue with talent if they were to expand further. There is definitely enough talent to fill the rosters at the college level.

We shall see. They will want quantity, especially if they will all but be abandoning the other leagues. I can't imagine FSU, Miami, Clemson, UNC, and potentially Virginia being left out. Maybe the number is 20 in each conference and there are two divisions with the top 2 in each division playing for a shot in the conference championship. Either way, USF will be left behind and relegated to the minor leagues.

This guy has missed on nearly every single one of his predictions so far. I just flushed one of his sources down the toilet this morning.

I think the magic number is probably 27 in each conference. Each team plays each team in its division and then plays 2 games against each of the other divisions. The media partners will want to have a big enough playoff to justify 4 rounds.

I think the realization that the window is about to close is the main driver behind an OCS. Unfortunately, the complacency of our leadership to react and grow over the past 14 years has placed us in an untenable position. I fear that the stadium will be an albatross that financially weighs heavily on the athletics department for the next generation or two. Too little, too late.

I don't mind optimism, but there reaches a point where it become blind delusion. Any hope of USF football being a serious player in the world of major college football is quickly dying. Media markets are going to mean less and less as time goes on. Academics will mean less and less. Those are two of the biggest things that USF has going for it and their value is rapidly depreciating before our very eyes. Amateurism is dead, as well, which is making this change far more rapid than most of us ever thought it would be. I am not being a defeatist, but I am being a realist. USF's window of opportunity is about to close. If CAG doesn't produce for us, and quickly, the window will be closed forever.

No offense, but big whoop. This is all about consolidation. They are creating the appearance of fairness for now. The reality is that they are going to get to the point where the semifinals teams are from the B1G and SEC every year. I see things playing out like this: by 2036, the SEC and B1G will take what their media partners want from the Big 12, ACC, and any G5 that might be attractive by then. They will likely get to 24 to 30 teams each, break into 3 divisions, have separate "playoffs" consisting of the division winners and the next best 3 teams. Then the SEC and B1G playoff champions will play in the College Football Championship game. Everyone else outside of that elite fraternity will be relegated to a lesser division of college football. USF's window of opportunity to not get left out is just about closed. We have about 12 years to make the CFP a few times and win a few games in the playoff in order to be considered. A very tall order when you factor in that the G5 teams are essentially all competing for 1, maybe 2, playoff spots each season.

You are thinking of it in sum of parts versus the whole. ESPN needs/wants some level of West Coast programming. As it stands, they have sat by and watched the Big Ten take the 4 most valuable west coast schools, and they only have a portion of the Big 12 media rights. By getting Stanford and Cal into the ACC, they now control those two. If they can find a way to add OSU and WSU to the AAC, great. If they can then decimate the MWC by taking 4 or 5 of its most valuable programs to the AAC, they will have taken away inventory from their media opponents (FOX, CBS, NBC). This is all about consolidation and it is going exactly how the media giants want it to go.

There won't be 6 guaranteed spots.

Not a chance, but nice try. This all goes back to firing Leavitt and every poor decision that followed. Also, the school gobbling up all donations to gain AAU status.