BullyPulpit

What is very telling to me is that the second USF loses a game in which they played as poorly as they could play, the darksiders are out in force. However, when the Bulls win and look impressive on the road (even though they still shot poorly from 2 pt range) they are nowhere to be found.

Not to mention the likely return of Howard

Nice road victory. Need to start shooting better from 2 pt range. Great FT shooting tonight. GO BULLS!!!!

UF recruits itself Smazz....come on. Put Leavitt at UF and there is not a player in the state he couldn't land. He is a players' coach if there ever was one.

A lot of good that will do them......we will have as many as you there

If you check the email I posted from Bo Kerr with eSPN, he claims to have consulted with the Meieke Car Care Bowl planners regarding the PEP Rally. I just can't wrap my head around their decision, but alas I am not on the Bowl Committee, so what do I know....other than what the fans want. :-/

I just like the idea of a more centrally organized bowl event on Friday night. The $100 is also a bit steep, as my wife, my father, and I barely drink. I think in future years USF should consider having a reduced price option for those that do not wish to drink.

This is what I cannot understand about the scheduling of the PEP Rally: 1. They are not going to generate any appreciable additional revenue; All dollars spent the morning of the game are likely to have been spent irrespective of the PEP Rally. 2. They are losing out on the experience that fans could have had and a chance to show off their nightlife in the downtown area. 3. The players and coaches will not be in attendance, greatly reducing the excitement surrounding the festivities. The only logical conclusion that I can come to is that the Bowl Committee is hedging their bets with regards to the fan support for the teams involved and the liklihood of the fans coming out to a Friday night event. I cannot say that I agree in the slightest. Overall it looks like this bowl experience is going to pale in comparison to that of Charlotte, at least as far as the pre-bowl festivities are concerned.

I agree... On the other hand, what if this is just the slippery slope towards NFL going the way of boxing? PPV. If there's a path to seperate you from your money...the fine folks in television and advertising will find it. It's odd that the 'exclusive' broadcast rights were allocated to The NFL Network. Could it be that there's more money in restricting the audience?  I believe, but I could be wrong, that the NFL Network's backing was integral in the Texas Bowl becoming a reality. I believe that they are the big financial force behind that game. The Insight Bowl (Minnesota v. Texas Tech) is also being exclusively broadcast on the NFL Network. This is clearly just a ploy by the NFL to target large metropolitan cities in their never-ending pursuit to gouge the cable companies and their subscribers. I think that is one of the main reasons they sought out the BE in their bowl deal, as we have very large TV markets for all of our teams.

Well guys, I tried my best, but apparantly ESPN Regional's Manager of Sales and Marketing who is in charge of the PapaJohns.com Bowl festivities does not see it from our perspective. Below is the email he sent to me regarding a Friday Night PEP Rally: Thank you for your feedback regarding the Papajohns.com Bowl. We are working extremely hard to ensure a wonderful bowl experience for the participating teams and fans. We have contact the folks in Charlotte about their pep rally and street festival as numerous South Florida fans have talked about how enjoyable it was last year. We are constantly looking for ways to improve upon our presentation. I think that you will enjoy our Saturday morning pep rally and make it a part of your tailgating festivities. Papa John's will be conducting an Arm Chair Quarterback Competition with a winner from each school participating on the field at half-time. Our pep rally was planned with careful consideration and with all factors considered we felt Saturday morning at Legion Field was the best option for us in our first year. Again, we sincerely appreciate your feedback and look forward to hosting you in Birmingham. Sincerely, Bo Kerr Manager, Sales & Marketing ESPN Regional Television 205-733-ESPN

As of right now, a PEP Rally is scheduled for the 23rd at 10 am, two hours before kick-off. I have emailed a Bowl Committee Member requesting them to reconsider and plan something in the Five Points area on Friday evening/night, similar to what they had in Charlotte. Below is my email and his response, I recommend that you all STAMPEDE him with emails so that the Bowl Committee sees the light and moves the PEP rally to Friday Night. His email is: papajohnsbowl@dragonzrealm.com MY EMAIL: Dear Bowl Committee Member, I received your email address from TheBullspen.com website. First of all let me start by saying that I am really looking forward to the PapaJohns.com Bowl as are my fellow USF Bulls brethren. I do have one concern however. I see that the bowl committee is planning on having the PEP Rally for the teams immediately prior to the game at 10 am. While I love the idea of a PEP Rally, I must say that I do not think the committee has selected the best time for a PEP Rally. For starters, many fans will be tailgating and will not want to interrupt their pre-game plans to attend the rally. Second, this is the type of event that is perfect to have in Downtown, maybe in the the Five Points area, on Friday evening/night. Last year I attended the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, NC. They had their PEP rally Downtown the evening before the game. It was very well attended and they also had a street festival. There were numerous vendors and games and the city benefited from added revenue. It was very family friendly and there were plenty of activities for the kids. I would strongly urge the PapaJohns.com Bowl to move the PEP Rally to Friday. Please take this suggestion into consideration. Jeff Padgett's Reply: Thank you for your suggestion. I have forwarded it to the marketing manager for his consideration. As you know, this is the inaugural Papajohns.com Bowl and it is still very much a work in progress. We are striving to make everyone's visit to Birmingham as enjoyable as possible. We do value your opinions, along with the thoughts of many of your fellow Bulls fans as well as those of your opponents. They will go a long way towards helping us acheive our goal of building the PapaJohns.com Bowl into a memorable post-season event. Again, thank you for sharing your views with us and I hope you enjoy your visit to Birmingham. Jeff Padgett

Actually, we have very little problem with the schedule next year. That Auburn win on the road, coupled with a road win over Rutgers and home wins over WVU and Louisville will be as impressive as just about any other National Title Contenders

I can't believe we are only 5-1 right now.....If we had (insert coach here - Huggins, Seth, Etc.) we would be 10-0 RIGHT NOW. There is no reason a team relying heavily on 2 freshman and a former walk-on point guard shouldn't be undefeated. I can't believe they haven't fired CRM after going 5-1, this program is going nowhere fast.... Oh, also the beer at the Sun Dome is stale...... ;D

This is the type of thing we need to set up a magical run next year! Hopefully others in the media will begin to recognize that the sleeping giant is about to awake and make some serious noise. Auburn will be the game that DEFINES this program.....mark my words. When we go into their house and beat them by 10 points, the world will take notice and the Big 4 will become a reality. Bulls 2007...BCS OR BUST!!!!

I won because my wife has become obsessed with USF Football as I am. She wouldn't dare miss a game we could attend. I'm a lucky guy!

No tickets posted on eBay yet......

as a USF fan I hope we have a great season. What I dont want is just enough improvement to keep the Mac era going.  (2-4 Big East wins) If he gets 6 or more wins in Conference I will agree that we should keep him around another year. Just improvement should not cut it? Can we do any worse than last year? We could if we really tried...I am reserving judgement on everything until conference play but with everyones logic on here Coach Fernandez should be fired b/c we lost to Michigan State b/c we had a ton of turnovers.  Come on people I know everyone wants to blam coach mac for everthing but sometimes you cant put an off night fom the floor on him.  If you have played basketball before you should know that some nights shots just are not falling.  I think that was the case tonight but if it does not get better then you all deserve to talk but until then give the TEAM a chance. Fernandez and McCullum are like polar opposites; it's like comparing McCullum to Leavitt. Fernandez has done so much good for that team; he's a great coach and a great guy who has done so much good for the program, the school, its athletes and its fans. Same for Leavitt. McCullum has done NOTHING. He is a LOSER. He proves this by repeatedly LOSING. I have seen NO redeeming value from him in his tenure here. I have seen no indication from him that things are going to get better. Fernandez's team having a bad game is a big-time exception and it happened in this case against a top-25 opponent; McCullum's team having a bad game is the norm and it happened in this case against RICHMOND. This team is going NOWHERE under him. Of course I want the coach of the team to do well because that means the team is doing well. That doesn't mean I have to think McCullum is a good coach or the right coach for this team. As for whoever said "you can't blame poor shooting on the coach," that is horsefeathers. So if you can't blame the team being a joke on the coach, at what point does anything at all become the coach's fault? THAT is the loser attitude that lands crappy coaches like McCullum tenure at schools they have no business staying at, because people are afraid to admit it's time to fire his useless ass. Poor shooting can be blamed on the coach if it is EPIDEMIC. If it is an isolated incident in which the team has an off night (40% from the FT line is about as off as it gets, short of Shaq) I do not think it warrants calling for the coach's head. If the players had executed we would have won this game....that is the point. If CRM's game plan was so horrendous that we couldn't have won even if we had played average basketball, then I would agree with pinning this on him. The real problem is that it is the same clowns who eagerly standby waiting for the team to fail or faulter so that they can jump all over CRM....thats bullspit.

They were getting the ball in to the low post with some consistency. The problem is that Richmond was playing a really soft defense, challenging us to beat them from the outside. The result....a 39% shooting night from the field and 40% from the line. We were down by 5 with 2:30 left despite the horiffic shooting. There were definitely periods in the game where our execution was poor and there was a lot of ball watching, but we still should have won easily.

This is where I strongly disagree with the pro-CRM crowd on this board.  I have never suggested we fire CRM on this board or any other board, but when a basketball team looses (or wins) it is ALWAYS the head coaches fault.  If you are the captain of a ship and the ship runs aground, it is your fault.  It doesn't matter if the maps are wrong, the GPS failed, it wasn't your watch time, your kids called, etc etc.  When USF looses to teams they should easily beat it is most definitely CRM's fault.  What I will say is that when a BE basketball team is loosing year after year to teams like Richmond and Bethune Cookman some serious action needs to be considered.  I am not pro-CRM. I am just saying that the game plan tonight was good enough to win had the players executed. We left soooo many points on the floor tonight it was not even humerous. I agree that USF needs to step things up, but this program has had REALLY REALLY bad luck. Player blows out two ACLs, another blows out achilles, another blows out ACL, player dies of cancer, good recruit has a heart attack.....there is not a coach short of Coach K that could win consistently with this type of adversity. I understand that eventually CRM head will probably roll as a result of the bad fortunes of this team. What I take exception with is the pure hatred these vile flammers wait to unleash after every USF loss. CRM had them in a position to win tonight, they just failed to show up and execute.

He recruited a lot more players than he has available right now too. This program has been snake bitten, between knees, achilles, and cancer....it it not all RMC's fault. Recruiting and Free Throws.....Hmmmmmm.......I am sure they could shoto in high school, I am sure they shot better earlier this year, I am sure they will shoot better in subsequent games. Your reasoning behind pinning this on RMC makes no sense. You same flammers would not be saying the same thing about Leavitt if 60% of his starters were injured and his wide receivers were dropping wide open TD pass after wide open TD pass. No, you would be saying how the players need to execute and Leavitt needs to ride their asses until they start performing better. Don't have a double standard. We are 4-1 and even if we haven't been world-killers, we have improved since last season.

You can talk about it. Talk about the poor FT shooting. Talk about the poor field goal shooting. Talk about how we were in it with 2 minutes left depsite the two major factors above. Talk about the match-up problem we had with their post player that could pop outside and hit the three. Talk about Richmond shooting over 50 percent from three point range (an abberation). Just don't come on here and talk about how this was somehow CRM's fault, he can't go out onto the court and shoot the FT's for them. Talk away, just don't spin.

We wouldn't have beaten Hillsborough High shooting the way we did from the floor tonight. Every team has 2 or 3 games like this over the course of the season. Lets just hope that we limit it to two or three games. Please do not start the sky is falling crap. We couldn't hit the broadside of a barn tonight and our FT shooting was abysmal, and we were still in the game with 2 minutes left. Is see progress, improvement, and hope for the future out there on the court. Remember, we only get better starting December 17.

I have a specific request..... Can we please move the PEP rally to Friday Night somewhere downtown...maybe that Five Points area? We will be plenty peped up on Saturday, and many like to tailgate. Plus, this will bring in a lot of money into a specific area that might not otherwise see it. I know I do not plan on going to Five Points (if thats what its called) unless there is a Pep Rally. They did a Pep Rally the night before the Bowl Game last year in Charlotte and it was very well received and attended. Please consider this strongly.

Or we could all find a bum lying around the stadium, and bring a bum to the game! The only problem with that idea is that the Bowl Execs might mistake them for ECU fans. It is still technically a "charitable donation"

Here is my plan. For those of you looking to get butts in the seats......Get an extra ticket or two.....enter the stadium.......leave.......re-enter using new ticket........repeat as necessary