FazaUSF

Being turned off by negativity can stimulate excellent debate and does not require degeneration into insults and personal zingers. Good life lesson, there. My statement was also a bit tongue-in-cheek. I want almost nothing in the world more than I want our alma mater to be the best that it can be, which would include our football team someday winning a national championship (unlikely as its chances may seem in our current conference, I still bullieve). Providing a flip side to rosy predictions is also part of the game here at TBP, particularly when I have been the green and gold glasses-wearer in the past. There is no need to fire shots at friendlies.

I don't know who you are. Perhaps that speaks to my status of being uninformed, or perhaps it reflects the likelihood that a longtime stalwart in the alumni, donor, staff, and general USF fan circles would consider it important to know you. Regardless, I believe you could have quite easily explained your position without dripping with classlessness. Were it not for the context of this board, I would typically have taken that type of comment to reflect your membership from a different fan base, one which may not strive to uphold values such as mutual respect and common decency amongst like-minded folks with support for a common beneficiary.

A pro-style offense? Great, third time's a charm, see, only two coaches have thus far failed miserably when trying to force a pro-style offense (square peg) onto a team built for the spread and lacking the horses for a pro-style offense (round hole). Yup, third time's a charm... Just 8 months til we're back on the coaching carousel, for anyone counting...

Forget the word cupboard. The point is, CCS didn't have to start from scratch when he arrived; he had a team which could have easily gone undefeated had he utilized the talent appropriately in 2017. Much like Skip Holtz, he tried to apply a square peg (his offensive scheme) to a round hole (our players' collective talents) and he wasn't remotely as successful in doing so until letting the reins off Quinton Flowers a bit towards the back half of the season. Flowers succeeded in spite of that, but everyone watching could tell the team's success and potential were being held back due to the faults of its coaching staff. I accept your argument that not enough solid/ready starters were waiting in the wings for after the 2017 season. However, while a dip in production may have been expected, that dip was far deeper and more extensive than it should have been had player development and recruiting adequately mitigated expected and forseeable deficiencies (which a professional coaching staff would be expected to engage in and be measured by). I am not sorry to say I will not wave off last year's miserable collapse as "teams have bad years" and "those things happen." The coaching staff VERY clearly failed with a vast array of tasks ranging from player development to playcalling. It has been obvious since this staff took the helm and has yet to change significantly from our public standpoint, until we see the results of efforts put in since a miserable ending to last season which is frankly inexcusable.

Since you're focusing on my comment asserting that Taggart left the cupboard full, why don't you analyze how many players of his were available for CCS to use in his first year? How many starters in 2017 were not recruited by CCS? That would be the general accepted meaning of how well-stocked an outgoing coach leaves a football roster for the incoming coach. It was certainly better off than how CCS found post-Kragthorpe Louisville. Trip pointed to a comment I made about the cupboard; I wrote that CCS failed to capitalize on the excellent talent he was left with. That refers most heavily to 2017, less heavily to 2018, and least heavily to 2019 in direct proportion to the players left on the team from before CCS. By third year, most coaches are considered to have had adequate time for their system and recruits to start bearing fruit and generating success reflective of said current coaching staff, which is less dependent on how well-stocked a prior coaching staff left a team. The discussion kinda went off into the weeds with the cupboard.

I appreciate you mate, but what I really need is a football program that appears to reflect the upward trajectory of the university which sponsors it. That would do me a world of good. The rest of Athletics absolutely is in great shape. I agree with you; I do believe Kelly was a smashing hire, and hopefully he will direct the most successful coaching search USF can ask for.

My implication refers to the fact that a coach's third year is often looked at as more reflective of his ability to recruit and coach players up. Yes, it IS his third year, thank you Grammar Police. Football players have up to 5 (or rarely 6) years of eligibility... Taggart left the cupboard full and CHS clearly could not and did not take advantage of that to its fullest extent, or our record the last two years would have been better. CHS has only his third recruiting class (two of them among the worst in over a decade, mind you); the cupboard still contains players from prior to his arrival, though by now the majority will be his. Do not split hairs with me. The straw man argument will not be appreciated here.

Are we following the same team? Strong's first year returned the key components to one of the best offenses in America, which was promptly misused, misunderstood, and led to the fanbase to plead with CHS to "Let Him Cook." Had he avoided tweaking the offense and simply shored up the defense, an undefeated season was clearly within reach. Losing to Houston was indescribable, and the loss to UCF was equally avoidable (though I credit the staff for calling a decent game here).

Are we sure this doesn't mean BJM's defense will yet again take a huge step back in 2019? As I recall watching last year, the defense would make nearly ANY offense look explosive...

I remember losing 6 straight games. I remember jockeying hard to trade shifts to get the day of the bowl game free so I could attend the worst attended and saddest game ever. I remember feeling embarrassed for us as I looked around at the extremely poor attendance at a bowl game in our home city. I bought 8 tickets to that game and tried hard to get anyone I knew to go by giving the tickets to them if they'd show. I remember thinking... I paid someone to take my night shift and took a hit on income around holiday time just so I could show up to watch the team seemingly not put in maximum effort, and CERTAINLY so I should watch our fanbase not put in maximum effort. I am not sold on the current coaching staff and frankly would need to be astronomically impressed with wins over the OOC teams on our schedule to reinvest my confidence. Yes, I would rather get the splashy wins early in the season even if it meant bleeding a few in the back half because my pride as a USF fan is horribly bruised after failure in what should have been an undefeated season in 2017 and a slew of unfortunately obvious deficiencies in coaching that many will recall several of us posted about prior to the back half collapse of 2018. This season was supposed to be Charlie's 3rd year. The year we SHOW UP. The year USF gets back onto the national scene. Charlie was supposed to take Taggart's very full cupboard and maximize it, but instead he wasted it. We have just about the best OOC schedule I can remember and I believe we are going to fail miserably to capitalize on that opportunity while UCF just keeps passing us up as the tallest of the G5 ahead of any future realignment. My belief is that we need to let Charlie have his 3rd year and unless he goes just about undefeated, we should kindly part ways, so hopefully someone more hungry can be found who can take aim at that 2022 schedule against Texas, Florida, and Louisville.

Donated, thanks for sharing. Go Bulls!

Agreed. We can dream

Have we not had commemorative tickets for every single bowl game? I wish this had been made known in advance, seriously. I would have kept the real ones from game day. Have never missed a bowl game nor a commemorative ticket.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BULL-BRONZE-GIANT-Wall-Street-Beef-Steak-LIFESIZE-MONUMENT-Rodeo-PBR-Mascot-ART/382308751295?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

What good is playing them if we can't beat em? I miss the days when USF was a giant-killer. When the team could be counted on to get up for any game and had a legit chance to beat anyone on the field, accolades be damned. Leavitt put incalculable hours into watching tape and the team fed off his attitude. Now, I look at future schedules and get excited for a second, only to have that excitenent give way to wondering whether we should realistically be playing teams with a $30 million annual advantage and whose coaching staffs routinely outmaneuver the ones on our sidelines. I wish there was a light at the end of the new tunnel.