WWMJD

I believe that. Surely there are structural issues with the QB position, and other backups (or lack thereof at the QB position) that influence those numbers, and perhaps that's part of your point, but we've drifted a bit away from question if so.

That's a good question, to which I assume you are about to tell us the answer...

Historically, our receivers haven't fumbled much because they haven't caught the ball when it was thrown to them. But point taken.

I also love that we are having this conversation like a year and a half after people were talking about how awful QF was and how unfair it was that Taggart was starting him over Bench. (Not directed to any of the posters above, as this is a more reasonable group. Just think it's amusing re: how quickly fortunes can change.)

Think Mack and Adams are the best we've ever had at those positions, so we will have to agree to disagree there. Adams may not have been a superstar, but his numbers don't fully reflect his contribution in my opinion. I don't think we've ever had someone who had that kind of speed with good hands to match. And Mack... well if you don't know how big of an impact he had for us just by watching him, I don't know what to tell you. I love Flowers, and I'm hoping for a really earth shattering year from him. But he didn't do it alone last year. Can you envision a scenario in which we lose two games this year, JTrue? I assume the answer is yes.

I think it's close between the three, with a massive gap after, but we are only a few weeks away from seeing for sure what impact losing those two will have. I don't think you give Adams and Mack credit for just how good they were last year. (I hope I'm wrong on this one, for sure.) But even if you're right about the relative contribution, our offense has lost valuable players from last year. Our schedule is way easier, but to say you can't imagine this team losing two games? I know the preseason hype train is in full effect but lets be realistic - maybe we run the table but it's at least conceivable we drop a couple, right?

Might have been the greatest single individual performance by any Bull ever. What a game.

We lost our two best players. Surely you can see how that could conceivably result in a dropoff? I don't know that it will, and I sure hope not, but I mean - it seems feasible at least.

Studies like this have been done repeatedly over the last 10+ years. When I was at the school and involved tangentially in athletics, we had just run a similar study.

Well ain't that a punch in the gut.

Intriguing prospect. Blazing speed at a need position? I'd take a flyer.

We will have to agree to disagree on whether 3 years is short notice to replace a game like this. Most schools have their OOC games scheduled years in advance - I mean ****, we've got games scheduled out to 8+ years from now. But those teams had not just finished knocking off ranked team after ranked team for the previous 5 years. We had a well-deserved reputation as a giant killer when these scheduling changes started, and had just made a splash hire at HC. Nobody was running scared from Tulsa and the like. Even if there's blame to go around, it's probably not the failure to find a top notch replacement (which I contend was basically impossible that close to the game), but in the planning process originally: buyout for MSU should have been more than 250k or we should have gotten home field first, etc. But I think it's absurd to assume there was some awesome option just sitting on the back burner eager to play us and waiting to be snagged.

If you were an AD at a big name P5 school, and were approached to fill a gap in your schedule (which is likely not even there to begin with), and you had the choice between 1) team that gets no real national respect, and has an objectively crappy record, but still picks off at least one top 25 team every year so they might beat you; or 2) team that gets no real national respect, has an objectively crappy record, but you are confident you can beat; or 3) team that gets legit national respect in a P5 conference, but might beat you; which game are you scheduling? In the preceding few years, we had taken down a significant number of good teams but still lacked any national respect. The proof is in the pudding. There is a reason that MSU bailed, UF bailed, etc., so it's not going to be easy to turn around and replace them on short notice (when everyone else has their schedule basically full) with a big name opponent.

I always make it a point to bring this up. Just like the Gators ran after we gave them a scare. There is not much incentive for a big name team to play a school like USF right now - we are no cupcake, but still - if they win, they should have won, if they lost, it's an embarrassment (at least in the eyes of the media and fans of that program).

I also wonder what group this refers to: This crew was not great on jump balls last year. Hopefully this means they've been focusing on attacking the ball in practice, because that's always been a weak spot of our receivers.

Lots of talent, but also lots of unproven guys. Losing Adams was a huge blow, because he was the only consistent pass catcher last year. Bronson hasn't lived up to expectations, and barring massive improvement, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone jump him - even before the season starts. We really need MVS to stay healthy and playing at a #1 WR level to stay productive on offense, in my opinion.

Hopefully he did a lot of maturing between then and now, because it's hard to imagine this kid as a coach.

It looks like they are specifically recruiting early enrollee kids, so I imagine they will take 7 EEs (assuming they can find 7 worth taking). At least a couple of the kids already on the list are EEs I think.

But they aren't even close to grey shirting anyone (although let's be honest, they'll do it if they can get away with it). We have 32 spots to fill, so we have tons of room to roll the dice on a couple kids. In addition to that, and what I really meant in the last post, is that people walk away voluntarily or fail to qualify. Of the list we have now, we can probably expect a good number of them to drop by the wayside - whether it's leaving for better offers or whatever else. Regardless of all this other stuff, it seems awfully early in Strong's tenure to feel negative about recruiting, especially with all the good press flying around.

Two things, though: This is Strong's first year. Hasn't conventional wisdom in the past been that these coaches need some time to really work on and develop the elite recruits? Making it hard to get that four or five star (for a team like USF) in that first year. Second, I doubt they are planning to just not recruit for the rest of the year. You have to think that they will continue to shoot for the higher end guys, with the thought that we can make room if necessary. There will be attrition from the list as it stands now - hell, one of them even said his recruitment was open in the same paragraph he "committed" to us.

Brad, did you pick this up? If so, where from?

He hasn't even coached a game, let's pump the brakes just a bit.

Pretty shocking first team if it ends up this way. Hope this speaks to the strength of our depth guys, rather than defects with some of the core that is missing.

The fact he is a QB that can be counted toward last years class makes this a really stellar grab. Very impressive work.

Do we have many guys that can really be considered fringe LB/DBs? Maybe Fullwood but we all know he doesn't play like a LB and seems to shy away from contact. I just don't see that we have the John Lejiste type on the roster... seems like the fringe LBs we have tend toward the heavier side (Black, Bayes, Jackson, Stanley)