BigEastBeasts

Welcome to Charlotte - Drive fast or Ric Flair will pull you out of your car and beat the crap out of you WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! ;D

Just as a note on my post regarding Bobby Hurley, both of these guys fit the exact same mold, at least looking at their college experiences. They have both played (and coached) under Coach K, and if anyone has followed Duke basketball, they played in a much similar fashion to Hurley when they were on the floor, especially Wojo.

Lou Carneseca - Big East experience and such a snappy dresser ;D He may not be interested one bit in coaching, but it would be fun to see someone like Bobby Hurley walking the sidelines. I'm partial to Bobby cause I watched him play High School ball in Jersey City, but his old man is one of the best coaches in HS Basketball history and he played under Coach K at Duke, so he knows how to win. If he could get a hold of these kids and somehow instill his heart and work-ethic into them, I think we'd see immediate benefits on our team.

If that was the case I hope they filled out the form correctly for the tix to be mailed, otherwise they're sitting at the SunDome waiting for them. ;D

And I must now pose the question once again, what would you like the marketing dept. to do over what its already done? They have billboards on major traveled roads, they ran radio ads on sports talk radio, they have run print ads in the paper in the past (All of which is a little ridiculous to have to do in the first place. You shouldn't have to continually advertise that there is a game coming up for a D1 football team in a major conference) See, there is a little problem here, and that problem is you can't MAKE people care. We play in a 60,000+ seat stadium that houses both our team and an NFL team, located in what is commonly referred to as a "football town". Said NFL team currently sells out this stadium, along with 100,000 people (allegedly) on a waiting list for season tickets that cost at least $500/season. Our team, on the other hand, has trouble getting 30,000 people in the same stadium on a Saturday night, with the most expensive ticket being $29. You can't tell me that out of the 160,000+ fans that have or are on the list for Bucs tickets, that half don't even know USF has a football team that plays at the same stadium at the same time of year. The problem is these people just don't care about the fact that we have a football team or care to go to games for whatever reason. Sure the Bucs lost 26 in a row and may have had stands that were "full for the most part", but they were still a new product to the area. As the losing built up, people stopped caring and they were left playing in a half full stadium, and half of those people were there for the other team. When did the Bucs start filling the stands again? Oh yeah, it was in '97 when they went to the playoffs and started winning. Like you said, you can market something until you're blue in the face, but if the people don't want it they won't buy it. No matter how much we market the team and the school, when people start actually caring, they'll start showing up.

I do not know thing one about our budget and how one effects another, but just a little food for thought here.......does anyone really think we would hire a new bball coach with a salary higher than that of CJL? I have a hard time thinking our Athletic Department would be willing to throw big-time money at a coach, no matter who he is, with the situation said coach is walking into. If we were to hire a guy at $500,000 - $1mil a season and things weren't significantly improved in 3 years, we're all sitting here banging away at our keyboards, b*tching about how much we're paying this guy for a still crappy basketball team.

Leaving tonight bout 8 or 9pm and getting to my initial destination of Fountain Inn, SC sometime early in the morning. Will be spending the day in SC, hopefully leaving for Charlotte between 6 and 8 tomorrow night. Might miss a couple of the official Bull gatherings, but I will definately be hitting up the bars tomorrow night.

My suggestion: An on-campus stadium and home games played on Wednesday nights at 7:30pm, since we don't draw crowds because the stadium isn't on campus and we don't draw for day games because there are other things going on  Now, I'm not a marketing type person, but i don't blame the marketing department as much as just people in general. :: DEAD HORSE ALERT :: Like it or not, we live in a bandwagon town. For the most part, the people in Tampa will not support a team until they are a winner, plain and simple. Look at the history with teams in this area. It happened with the Bucs, it happened with the Lightning and I can guarantee you it will happen with the Rays sooner or later. It even happened with us leading up to the WVU game. Before the UConn debacle everyone was hyped up for the WVU game because of the implications, even the fringe fans, because USF had a chance to be a winner, to be a champion. As soon as we lost to UConn, where did that buzz, along with most of those people go? With the Bulls we are dealing with a situation where there have been at least 3 alternatives within the state for at least 40 years before we even started a program. I would even venture to say that the majority of fans for those 3 teams never actually went to school there, but they still see no reason to change their allegance just because the Bulls are the "home" team and unfortuantely that probably will not change until we win and go bowling on a consistant basis. :: END OF DEAD HORSE BEATING :: No matter how good your marketing is, and where it is directed, it is ultimately the people of the area who need to alter their mindset and accept Bulls Nation. Until then, we can shove it down their throats all we want, but we will still see the same 25,000 - 30,000 average at Ray Jay and the same general indifference towards us and our program.

http://www.thebullspen.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=news;action=display;num=1135787864

Gray hoodie from Champs with USF and the iconic U embroidered on the front, very nice. It will be worn for the night out friday and under my game-worn Brandon Baker jersey (autographed by CJL) for the game.

Church with the family Christmas Eve, then hang out at their place and share some drinks and laughs. Open presents Christmas Morning, head to my fiance's family's place for early dinner, then back to my family's place for late dinner and dessert with some friends. Then, complete and utter focus for the trip to Charlotte and a Happy BULL Year.

Christmas Vacation Christmas Story March of the Wooden Soldiers (not necessarily a Christmas movie, but they always showed it around Christmas time in Jersey) On TV: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Charlie Brown Christmas and Frosty the Snowman

Todd Wright (I believe) was on 620 this morning filling in for Dan Sileo and he said that when he was with ESPN, their highest ratings always came in the week and a half/two weeks of Bowl Games shown on ESPN and ESPN2

From CJL's Media Luncheon yesterday: On Johnny Peyton and the wideouts: “I said that Johnny Peyton (ankle) was probably doubtful but he looked a heck of a lot better this morning. I saw him running through the weight room yelling and screaming. He looked like he had a lot better chance to play. In his absence Marcus Edwards has done an outstanding job. Amarri Jackson and Marcus have been working ones and twos. We certainly have S.J. Green and Jackie Chambers. A lot of our guys have healed back up and they are excited to play a very good football team.†http://gobulls.usf.edu/Sports/News.asp?i=2049&s=Football

Wait, you mean all families don't fight tooth and nail during the holidays?!?!?

I think that barring anything crazy this should be pretty accurate. I was scouting the 10 day for Jersey when I went up to the Rutgers game and it stayed on course. In my opinion it was actually a little warmer than the forecast was predicting. Those 30's at night will provide some bite, but thats what the liquor is for, its the ultimate equalizer for those cold temps

Wow......I take a couple of things from this: 1. Obviously Mr. Webb doesn't have a great grasp on our program if he expected us to travel 10,000 to this game. I will not beat the dead horse of home game attendance, but to look at those numbers and think we would travel 10,000 is essentially setting yourself up for disappointment. 2. This is a bowl that wanted to take UConn over us because they traveled 5000 to their bowl game last year and a "high-profile" school in BC only traveled 5000 to this bowl last year, so I don't think we should have anything to be ashamed of with the number we are bringing up there.

That is a very good possibility.........it was the guy from Sports Talk Live and he was talking about how it shouldn't really be seen as a bad thing that we've only sold 5000 tickets considering the lack of history and all that. He said it would reflect much worse if we were to win, then go 8-4 or 7-5 and not travel to a bowl game next year.

We got our tickets through the school the Saturday after they went on sale and we're in 135, Row 19, Seats 1-14 so that must be our little wedge of the stadium. Also, heard on the radio this morning that so far they are reporting a total of 23,000 tickets sold.........hopefully some sponsors and groups will be stepping up to buy tickets, or they already have a bunch of tickets that aren't being added into that number

If you want to start getting really technical about the Skunk thing, that was a label placed on us by a national writer, and the Tampa writer was having fun with it on you guys, considering without an ACC Championship Game you guys wouldn't have even sniffed a BCS Bowl. Now, props to your guys, they went out, won the game they had to win to get into the OB and should be proud of themselves for getting into the BCS mix once again, but I wouldn't be pounding my chest too much about this year after a couple of the losses you guys suffered. Also, love your comment about national reputation and people who have actually HEARD about your school. Its REAL hard to make those comparisons when comparing a program with over 50 years of history to one with 9. Just hope you guys can keep it within 10 against JoePa and the Nittany Lions, cause we did (in Happy Valley)

No one is upset with Greg at all. Greg was upset that someone changed the title of the post and accused him of writing a false report after Josh said that he spoke to Oliver and that he hadn't fully made up his mind yet. I agree that there is nothing wrong with discussing the kid and his stats, I just think that the majority (myself included) is so ready for a change at the QB position that even the mention of landing a prospect such as this gets us a little crazy

I pulled this from an article dated April 29, 2005....couldn't find anything more recent: While expanding the season to 12 games, the board said that it wants to preserve the idea of a winning record being necessary to be eligible for a bowl game. However, it will have the NCAA staff and Management Council investigate whether disallowing 6-6 teams to be eligible for bowls would leave too few teams for the bowls. http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-18/111475633618920.xml

Yeah, I knew he was working at QB through the bowl game, I'm just curious if he would grow sour if he was to be passed over by 1 or 2 guys at the QB position and moved to WR. I would hate to lose a guy with his overall athletic ability if he had his heart set on playing QB.......it would be like losing Brian Fisher all over again (even though it would two EXTREMELY different circumstances)

As if my outlook for the future wasn't bright enough..........WOW, i like getting this news first thing in the morning. If Mr. Oliver and Mr. Grothe can put up a good showing in Spring Practices and give us hope for solidification of the QB position........YAY!!!! Does anyone know, if C4 was to be permanently moved to WR, would he want to stay, or does he want to play QB first?

Pat Forde made predictions on all the Bowl Games, his take on the MCCB: Meineke Car Care Bowl (25), Dec. 31: North Carolina State should definitely have more fans in the stands, but South Florida should be stoked to make their first-ever bowl trip. The Dash likes coach Jim Leavitt and believes he'll have his Bulls ready. The pick: South Florida, 22-21. http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=2265162 There was also a side section where you could look at each bowl seperately, and Mel Kiper had this little blurb in there: South Florida had that early-season signature win over Louisville. You look at their offense, they have a great talent in Andre Hall. This kid has future NFL ability and they need to get him going. If NC State's defense can contain Hall, they'll make it tough for South Florida to win this game. -- Mel Kiper http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowls05/bowls?game=meineke Apologize if any of this is old, just found it this morning and found it interesting