CyberBull

Ucf barely has 30,000 in the stands...in that picture.

What a joke.

I can think of 40-59 stadiums that are easily better and guaranteed to be structurally sound ....and with water fountains.

 

 

Did anyone ask him about his consistently poor in-game decision making? Or did they sugar coat it? Wonder if they have the balls to ask Taggart what his expectations are for the season? Why be down when you're making $1M+ a season and you're always able to blame the previous regime for your troubles? How much worse do things need to get before he gets shown the door? It's not his first rodeo - so the learning process should have been a lot quicker with Team #2. We are in a miserable conference with very little talent - there's no reason why he can't have a team competing for a conference championship this season. Anything else should be considered a complete underachievement.

 

 

...sure, let's fire a coach every three years. That will definitely build the stability we need to win conference and get a P5 call up....smh

 

Gotcha...make sense to me.

 

 

There's no point in even asking what his expectations for the season is because you'll get the same answer he's given the last few months. Expect a good football team, to play in a new years eve bowl game (lol). Other than the select few big time programs most coaches are just going to say "I'm excited, I'm expecting big things". 

 

I agree we should've been better than we were last year, but couldn't expect too much out of that team. We are in an awful conference so a good coach shouldn't need a loaded roster to be near the top if not at the top of this conference especially in year 3 now.

 

I think Taggart takes more heat than he normally would given the circumstances he took over because he runs our offense that has been nothing short of piss-poor. Other than we have a new offensive system, new defensive system, and the notion of our guys are getting older and more experienced so they're going to get better (none are guarantees) we don't have anything to point to of substance to really know that things are going to start to be awesome this year. It's not like this team has a solid offense and we just need to pick up the slack on defense, or we are one good group of WR away from being a serious offense or something like that.

 

Cyber - If the coach is crapping the bed over a 3 year tenure in the AAC he's gotta go. You're not taking over Vanderbilt in the SEC. This is USF in the AAC. Look at Justin Fuente and Memphis. His first two years there, they were 7-17. In year 3 they went 10-3 and were co-champs of the conference. I don't think you could look at their roster and say wow Memphis just had so much talent to work with they had no choice but to go 10-3. 

 

Stability is important, but if you don't have what it takes to get the job done they've gotta go. If you look at the flip side going for stability you could stick with a guy for 5-7 years and that just sets your program back even more than firing a few coaches after 3 seasons. 

 

Year three is huge for Taggart and USF. No denying this but....folks wanted to fire him after year one. USF needs to be competitive and continue building on the win total by another 2-3 wins. That would allow CWT to get another year that is setup for a huge year that we have waited nearly decade. I am just not a big fan of the fire the coach mentality b/c you often do more damage if you are just making a change with no real plan other than placate the masses. 

1)  Which QB will be named starter to open the season vs. FAMU?

 

>> Flowers

 

2)  Will this be the same QB that starts the season's final game vs UCF?

 

>> We are going full alpha & omega with Flowers;

>> Other QBs will play but I think Flowers remains the starter throughout b/c USF is not asking him to throw the ball around the yard 50-60 times.

 

3)  How many net offensive yards will the Bulls new offense total vs. FAMU?

 

>> Bulls opens the season in grand fashion and puts up 453 yards

 

4)  Do you expect the Bulls to score a defensive touchdown against FAMU?

 

>> Yes, Nate Godwin causes a fumble and scoops it up for a TD

 

5)  Where are you on the Optimism Meter, for the season?  Low, Medium or High?

 

>> High, not b/c I expect us go undefeated but b/c we finally seem to making the right decisions to grow and stabilize the football program. However SO MUCH depends on our QB play that it's a definitely a cautious optimism.

 

 

 

 

 

Please feel free to author your own FQF each and every Friday, it's a quasi-tradition at TBP started many years ago by E.T.

.... Tomey and Kinnan were brought in under the Athletic Department budget to get around the limitations of the assistant coaching salary pool... which shows how much Harlan understands that football feeds the beast.

 

Good point Jim. Harlan in his short time at USF seems to understand what the athletic department needs way more than Woolard ever did.

Did anyone ask him about his consistently poor in-game decision making? Or did they sugar coat it? Wonder if they have the balls to ask Taggart what his expectations are for the season? Why be down when you're making $1M+ a season and you're always able to blame the previous regime for your troubles? How much worse do things need to get before he gets shown the door? It's not his first rodeo - so the learning process should have been a lot quicker with Team #2. We are in a miserable conference with very little talent - there's no reason why he can't have a team competing for a conference championship this season. Anything else should be considered a complete underachievement.

...sure, let's fire a coach every three years. That will definitely build the stability we need to win conference and get a P5 call up....smh

Gotcha...make sense to me.

With all the support these kids get academically and they way they're monitored they have to either be mentally incapable of being a college student or just not putting forth the effort required to stay eligible.  You're really reaching to try to pin this on Taggart.  

Fans have blamed Taggart for everything else , so why not blame him for a kid flunking out despite USF likely having the best academic support system in the state of Florida.

smh

For Danny Hope, South Florida’s co-offensive coordinator/offensive line coach, having Kinnan on board bleeds into the surreal. While at Eastern Kentucky, Kinnan recruited Hope out of Miami Killian High. Later, at Manatee, he gave Hope his first coaching job.

“He made a huge impact on my life in a lot of ways,†Hope said, “and to be here now, working with him again, is an honor and a privilege that is second to none. It’s a perfect fit in a lot of ways for both of us, as far as where we’re at in our football coaching careers.â€

 

http://preps.heraldtribune.com/2015/03/31/kinnan-is-back-in-the-game/

Makes you wonder if CWT would done this from the moment he got hired. I still believed that Woolard made a huge mistake in not finding the resources for Taggart to hire an experienced staff instead of the relatively youthful staff that he wound up mostly b/c of lack of money.

IIRC, we  flirted with a couple experienced assistants but couldn't pay up. Considering how important it was to get this hire "right" Woolard should have used some creativity to find the money to surround CWT with the staff needed to give him the best shot at being successful. That is why I think brining  Tomey and Kinnan were brilliant moves by Harlan and Taggart as the insight from some of the crusty old-timers can often times win you one or two games by themselves due to their experience.

Thx for the link.

Some things I noted:

-CWT plainly stated the past teams lack cohesion. Sounded like lots of individuals not enough team.

-This team put in some work in offseason and feels like a team that wants to play for each other and wants to rep their city like Fullwood

-Called out the talent level of past teams. Particularly the recievers. Anyone whos watched the Bulls last several years knows he speaks truth...

-Mentioned coach Kinnan in a way that confirms my conjecture that he is intimately involved on the O which should make all Bulls fans excited IMHO

Skip Holtz didn't inherit much from Jim leavitt at the WR position and he never really addressed the position other than D'Vario Montgomery who wound up transferring without much of an impact.

we finally have a athletes back at he WR position again...just need a guy that can get the ball and involved with offense.

Ok, I really don't know much about this but maybe it has always happened or maybe I am just paying attention more this year or both.

But if we are losing players, good ones at that, to "academic issues" who's fault is that? I have been through enough post graduate education to know that ineligibility does not sneak up on a player. Are the coaches not riding these kids the minute a mid-term bad grade comes out? Does this happen a lot on our team, or any team. I do not recall headlines of players getting kicked off other teams for "academic" reasons.

Is this a failure of our coaching staff. Think about it, to get kicked out for academic reasons, in my mind anyway, takes a couple of semesters at least. Maybe the coaches did all they could do, maybe not.

I would imagine that coaches are assigned to stay on top of this stuff and provide endless amounts of tutoring when an athlete starts to struggle.

Thoughts?

Does anyone know the full story?

Seems like poor Coach Taggart is responsible for everything bad that happens in this program. smh...

IIRC, Calloway was border line to get admitted in the first place. The bottoms line is that you can attend study halls, classes and take advantage of all the opportunity regular students don't but if you don't pass your tests you will fail your course. That sounds like exactly what happened here...hopefully he gets things in order b/c it sounds like he was at least putting forth the effort.....just needs results.

Btw, fans can't have it both way, that is we can't ***** about USF denying admissions to questionable students like Baxter yet complain when a player that we were counting on to significantly contribute flunks out. It's hard to build a program when you can rely on players to make grades.

One last thing: a lot more regular "students" flunk out than football players....and most of these happens b/c kids party too much, don't go to class and aren't mature enough to develop good time management skills. Is it USF's fault they flunked out? Willie Taggart's?

Put an order in for 6 tickets.

Although this is going to be an odd game for us. Our daughter will be a freshman at FSU this Fall....yeah I know. LOL

 

How could he have anything against Grothe? 

 

 

Go Bulls!

 

 

uh oh....

Doesn't look like The Jim is holding any grudges...

Not worth the trouble.

Plus I'm crossing my fingers that our QB depth is in the process of being stabilized with Kean, Oladokun, Woolard and hopefully Isaiah McIntyre in the fold next year. Johnson hasn't really proven himself to be worth the distraction....and not sure we need someone that loses their cool and strikes women....or anybody else for that matter.

 

 

 

IMO, the Big 12 is fools gold.

 

That is, the moment any G5 teams join...it will be a temporary band aid much like UL, UC and USF joining the BigEast.  I can't see the two conference blue bloods wanting a long term relationship with the 'likes of us'.  The best thing for USF would be for the B12 to collapse after OU and UT join the P5 conference of their choice. Once that happens it will set off the final round of alignment we'll see a best of the Big12/ACC/AAC band together for what would be a respectable league with enough football and political influence to have a real access to the college football playoff system.

Do I need to point out the problem here with our football team?

 

 

We are hardly the first program to go in the tank after experiencing some success and we won't be a bottom dweller forever.

 

It doesn't need to be forever... It just needs to be at the wrong time...

 

Same could have applied to UCF who tanked even lower than USF in 2003....and they have done ok. Well that is if you are comfortable with denying kids water, multiple NCAA investigations and employing a guy like GOL as the defacto leader of your university.

Conversely, all the former bottom feeder programs that are now supposedly ahead of USF like Memphis, UCF, Houston, etc....could all easily have poor seasons as they all lost a lot to graduation or are breaking in new head coaches.  I think we both agree that USF needs to win this year.

 

IMO, the Big 12 is fools gold.

 

That is, the moment any G5 teams join...it will be a temporary band aid much like UL, UC and USF joining the BigEast.  I can't see the two conference blue bloods wanting a long term relationship with the 'likes of us'.  The best thing for USF would be for the B12 to collapse after OU and UT join the P5 conference of their choice. Once that happens it will set off the final round of alignment we'll see a best of the Big12/ACC/AAC band together for what would be a respectable league with enough football and political influence to have a real access to the college football playoff system.

Do I need to point out the problem here with our football team?

 

We are hardly the first program to go in the tank after experiencing some success and we won't be a bottom dweller forever.

I think some folks give USF/Judy too much credit if they think a school that bungled it's BCS golden ticket could be the cause....never mind mastermind leading Big East schools to turn down ESPN's TV deal...or some sort of legitimate power broker in determining BEC expansion candidates. Remember we had Weak Handshake Woolard running this program...laughable to suggest that USF lead anything while he was in charge.

BTW...my "Weak Handshake Woolard" comment goes back to the El Paso get together you put together where I went up to Woolard to thank him for coming out to meet the fans and he gave me the weakest, dead-fish handshake known to man. I didn't think much of it then...but that was my first interaction with guy...and left me less than impressed.

IMO, the Big 12 is fools gold.

That is, the moment any G5 teams join...it will be a temporary band aid much like UL, UC and USF joining the BigEast.  I can't see the two conference blue bloods wanting a long term relationship with the 'likes of us'.  The best thing for USF would be for the B12 to collapse after OU and UT join the P5 conference of their choice. Once that happens it will set off the final round of alignment we'll see a best of the Big12/ACC/AAC band together for what would be a respectable league with enough football and political influence to have a real access to the college football playoff system.

Unfortunately the internet does not document all activity.

Not sure what you are suggesting...

...btw, I recall folks blasting Genshaft for seemingly favoring Villanova as a BigEast expansion candidate, in lieu of other potential programs.

This was done not because Villanova was some sort of football sleeping giant, but rather b/c for at least a short window, Nova was seen as the perfect "compromise" candidate that placated the basketball schools and "acceptable" to the all sports/football schools. So if it took supporting Villanova's candidacy as a full member to try and preserve the BigEast....it was a small price to pay. Especially when Genshaft, Woolard and at the time Leavitt all understood what would happen to USF is the BigEast was lost.

However these plans went to pot....when 'Nova weakass stadium plan was presented to the BigEast and created the 'excuse' the Pitt, WVU, Cuse and the basketball schools needed to eventually get the hell out of dodge. 

USF by no means helped it self by deciding to crater the football program through some poor decisions but the greater longer lasting damage was done when the Big East collapsed. 

Thanks for the research .... but I'm still missing where JG was part of the driving force to reject the ESPN offer which was what sealed the college football fate of the BE, if there was any hope at all of being part of a P6. An article posted said it was a basketball school, for obvious reasons and Pitt, for now obvious reasons. The whole whether JG was blackballing UCF or not thing was some fun stuff but has no bearing whatsoever on where we, or the conference, is today. If I understand the timeline correctly, the rejected, lucrative $1.4 billion ESPN offer that MAY have saved the conference was made without UCF anywhere in the picture ...

It's still missing b/c it's never happened.

It's a rewriting of the last days of the Big East's history is similar to what we see in history text books published in Texas nowadays...complete works of fiction.

thanks

I got phone call from John Lewis last week to the exact question, specifically the FSU game.

He said that information should be released this upcoming week. 

For the first time in years we are looking forward to taking in some away games: FSU, Navy, UCF and maybe ECU. The last time we went to ECU we had a blast...their fans were good hosts, great BBQ and loved the final outcome ;^)

Proof of what can happen:

 

 

Two of those games in the post-Leavitt crash.

Absolutely.

The formula is pretty straight-forward to get our attendance up to what is used to be:

1. Win games at home. Beat teams were are supposed to beat handedly and then win conference games at home. Anyone remember that 21 game home winning streak? We may have lost some tough games on the road during this stretch... but fans could always count on USF putting out an entertaining product at home. That makes people want to come back....and bring friends.

2. Students: win enough games in a row at home and that gets the students to show up more consistently. If we can get 10K plus students to show up again, that puts us at 50% toward our goal of 40K plus/filling up the lower bowl  (10K students + 10K season tix/diehards).

3. The other 50%: The remaining 20K are going to have to be won over by winning. Call them bandwagoners, fans for the other team or future diehards...but it doesn't matter...for us 'old-timers' we know we used to do this all the time for the first 15 years of the program and we remember how LOUD it gets just by filling up the lower bowl.

4. Playmakers: USF desperately needs more playmakers that folks talk about after the game. We need more of the likes of  Blackwell, Rubin, Fisher, Hall, Selvie, Grothe, Daniels, Reed, JPP....that can change games by themselves. IMO we may have at least one kid on offense in MarlonMack. If he could get some help from a dual threat like Flowers that would not only do wonders for the play on the field but it gives the program an opportunity to market the heck of these two...which is one of the strengths of Harlan's administration. Do this and we get more fans, season tix....and a nice buzz going on traditional and new media

I've watched a lot football in my life as a '40-something'...and been watching USF since Day1. IMO...I don't think we are that far away and I see next season as 2005/2006 type of season where Leavitt's teams were able to grind their way to wins without an established QB. Our defense is going to be young but very good. On offense, I think CWT is going to find a way to make the best use of his deep RB crew led by #5 and offset that threat with Flowers leg's as well until he grows into a better passer. 

Bottom line for me: I think CWT turns it around this year and puts more Ws on the board....if that happens USF fans need to put aside whatever LINGERING bad feelings they had about how CJL was treated...and embrace/support this team by showing up to games. 

Just win Willie, just win!

Another Boren quote that should be paid attention to:

 

"There could be some slight loss of revenue from bowl games and other sources, but if the conference carefully selects additional members, based upon their media markets and fan base support, the amount should increase rather than decrease."   Link

 

If that is a prerequisite, USF fans that remain should settle into AAC exile. 

Students and fans will return if the team can get going again.  

Students show up whenever there is excitement around the  team or the team is doing well. Ditto for our "fanbase".  I think that there are a lot of USF fans left...but let's be honest there hasn't been a lot to cheer about since 2011. However that is changing. Our new AD seems to "get it" ...and if CWT's team can turn the corner on the field this year matched by the recruiting momentum of the last three years then I like our chances to become relevant again.

Thanks for the heads up.

Just ordered the pair...I had been looking for these without much luck. Now if I could only find the American flag themed helmet I would be stoked to add that to my collection.

Obama works for less.

US Presidents essentially work for free based on the hours they work and how much of their soul they give away ...