BucsandBulls

I would definitely not just give everyone a raise as your have laid out. There are certain coaches who are up and comers who need raises to stop them from leaving for greener pastures, but there are others who you can keep at their current levels. With that said, most of our current staff have been with CWT for a while so imagine he just gives them all a nice pay bump without really evaluating who deserves to get paid.

I love Coach Woodie as a recruiter, but don't think hes ready to lead our Defense as far as putting together a scheme/game plan/play calling/ managing other defensive coaches. But I do also hope Nicholas is brought on full time or at least retained in his current role.

I have no idea if Tom Allen is going to Auburn or not. I hope he stays, but if he does go, I hope CWT and Harlan have already started putting their heads together for a short list. I do not see anyone on our current staff who should be promoted to this position. Here is a potential list from reading through articles and message boards of other teams already looking for DC's. I am not leaving off names "too big" for us, as with the new assistant bump we should be able to pay. A lot of these should some familiar names. Dan McCarney- left on good terms to the best of my knowledge, was very good with the Dline here and at UF, UNT did not do so well. Randy Edsall- Prior HC at UConn & Maryland, would be a great get, but may not want to take a step down to DC. Paul Rhoads- Former ISU HC, DC success at Auburn previously. Al Golden- Former UM HC, turned Temple around, DC experience at Virginia prior to that. Jon Tenuta- Virginia DC, older candidate, lots of experience at GT, ND, NC State. I don't have many under the radar names currently, but would certainly welcome hearing about some. Obviously our last hire was a P5 assistant and I would say that worked out successfully (for 1 year at least).

To be fair he could have been talking about both the AAC CCG and the CFP NCG which would be awesome. 15-0 next year, 9-0 at home!

That could be a possibility, but probably not a likelihood as new school like a Michigan may not have interest.

Still holding out hope Leavitt makes a move after bowl season, so we can grab this one.

Believe we only have 2/3 approvals currently. Tampa Sports Authority and Hillsborough County Commissioners. Still pending Tampa City Council which votes tomorrow I believe.

Cross Devin Bush Jr. out as a LB target he just committed to Michigan today per Bruce Feldman twitter. Cross JUCO WR Taj Williams off too as he stuck with his commitment to TCU.

I was just counting him as a current Commit still, I know that is a little up in the air. I think if we do get Gaines there is a strong chance he leaves, which I think is why we are trying to play the game where we get him in the door first since I believe he is an early enrollee then go get Gaines after. Its a dangerous game and I like Oladikun if we could only take him or Gaines I would prefer Oladukun but on the other hand I don't think you can ever have too many QB commits. You never know who is going to pan out, and those that don't pan out are often athletic enough to play WR or S.

Anyone have any word on how bowl practices have been? I know ,under CJL, we used to give the established players a week off and let the young players and redhshirts prepare like it was a game week and have a scrimmage. Would love to hear how some of these unknown guys are developing for next year. Since the bowl is so close to end of the season and recruiting were we able to even get all 15 extra practices in before the game? Are we able to use some of these after the game for player development perhaps?

Believe he is a Graduate Transfer and eligible this year. http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/12/08/chris-black-bamas-leading-returning-wr-announces-transfer/

Based on my completely uneducated, non-insider information we currently should have about 6-10 scholarship spots still available based on current commits, guys transferring in or delaying enrollment etc. This number could go up as high as 12-15 based on guys not making it or transferring out, so it is just an estimate. I have no information on current scholarship players transferring out or not qualifying. Stars are just my own evaluation not directly from any one recruiting site. Delayed Enrollment/Other: Glen Bethel OG, Derrick Calloway DT, Trevon Sands RB Possible Transfers: CJ Jackson CB, Mackenzie Alexander CB, Chris Black WR Targets by position: (I am not implying likelyhood of us actually getting commitments from any of these players, especially 4* and 5* players as they all have P5 offers) QB: Xavier Gaines 3* WR: Kalen Riles 3*, Trey Fulwood 3*, Tadarryl Marshall 3*, Nate Craig Meyers 5*, Taj Williams 4* (Juco) OL: Marcum Tatum 3*, Eli Johnson 4*, Stewart Reese 3* (Juco), Demetri Moore 3* (Juco) DE: Joshua Uche 3* DT: Shaver Manuel 5* LB: Dontaveious Jackson 4*, Devin Bush Jr. 4* CB: JoeJuan Williams 4*, KJ Sails 3*, Trayvon Mullen 4* S: Craig Watts 4* (currently committed to Jim Leavitt at Colorado, hoping Leavitt moves jobs so he will decommit). Feel free to call out guys I have included that have committed elsewhere, we really have no shot at, or others I have left off. The only one I think would truly be a pipe dream would be Nate Craig Meyers, but a friend told me something about him being a package deal with his brother which might interfere with some of the big programs. 2016 Analysis: On Offense, I think we are building incredible depth at QB, RB and WR. A good buddy used to always quote I believe Ed Orgeron's book that you should always take a QB in every class which is something that killed us before QF. WR looking to add some really special talent. OL and TE have some young unknown talent that needs to develop to be okay, would love to pickup some more kids here. On Defense, we are so deep at DB I love it, and we are trying to really add some more special talents to make this group great. LB had good young depth, but no one spectacular, I hope Cherry earns himself playing time. Don't see either recruit beating out Sanchez as freshmen but could be special in a year or two. Really would love to get Manuel at DT as I think he sees playing time immediately even if Calloway returns. DE and the "Bull" DE/OLB both have good young talent that needs to deliver next year. Special Teams: Nadelman had his ups and down, seems to be consistent on FG's lately. No idea who replaces Ciabatti, also would love a kickoff guy for touchbacks but doubt that is a scholarship position.

Not to scare you, but believe that means you might have clicked the donate to wounded warrior program button as that is how those show up, might want to follow up on that.

I would say the fact that he hasn't been as dominant since his injury is helpful to us, as maybe some of his big time offers from the other 3 of his top 4 haven't been after him as hard. But overall, he has gone from being the potentially at the very top of his class Top 10 5* to Top 100 borderline 5*/4*, still would be a great commit, and I'm pretty sure he would play significantly as a freshman, especially how thin we are at DT pending Calloway's return. Would doubt very much if we redshirted him, unless there is real concern that his previous injury has not healed correctly?

Section 10 Row 4, big concern about the angle of these seats down the first base line. Hope most of the action occurs down in the endzone closest to us.

I think you all are putting our chances wayyyyyy too low. If we were to win out, including beating an undefeated Houston team. I would put our chances at about 75%. The biggest variable to all this should be us winning out. High powered Cinci Offense, Desperate Rival trying to ruin our year, Conference Title game (which still need help from Memphis to get to). Our resume if we win out: 2 top 25 signature wins, 1 win against P5. 4 losses: 2 in conference to Top 35 teams, 1 to P5 FSU, and 1 bad loss to P5 Maryland. Even with that 4th ugly loss to Maryland I think the 2 signature wins top anything any other G5 team can put together as outlined below. The only legitimate threat I see would be a 11-1 Toledo team who has a win over Top 25 (at the time) P5 team Arkansas. However Toledo has one of their toughest games left against WMU which if these lose disqualifies them from this discussion due to not winning their conference. Or if NIU beats Ohio next week Toledo is also disqualified. Breaking down threats from other G5 conferences. MAC: Toledo discussed above. Bowling Green has no quality wins their best being Maryland (common Opponent) and Purdue, both bottom of the P5. 3 losses and no signature wins gives us the edge. MWC: Boise has wins against Washington and Virgina, both P5, but same as Bowling Green above. Best win for either Air force or Boise would be each other. CUSA: LaTech and USM have beat no one, best win would be each other. WKU has beat Vandy and Marshall has beat Purdue. Again both bottom of the P5 and their signature win win would be each other. Sun belt: No one has any signature win, best win would be by GSU if they can beat UGA. If ~3 games go our way I would put our chances closer to 95%, stay away from 100% just because the CFP does not have a published formula so you never know.

By my math, there are currently 50 bowl eligible teams and I only projecting 77 teams reaching 6-6 or better based on remaining schedules. There are 80 total spots for bowl teams (not including championship game). Even if the AAC manages to get 9 teams bowl eligible for the 7-8 bowl spots we have there should be others that have openings, so nothing to worry about.

This right here is the correct response even though I am in the go for 1 group. There are scenarios that would make going for 1 wrong and going for 2 wrong as both sides have brought up, which I am sure have both happened in the long history of the sport. It was not a 100% call either way, based on charts, coach group think, or whatever else you want to call it. We won the game and this decision is reaching to nitpick, it was no where near Taggart's worst coaching decision, probably not even his worst in this game.

It is not a simple 100% of the time you go for 2 there. Here are the possibilities: 2pt good Up by 6, they tie with a td and win with an xp. We then could win by a fg. 2 pt no good. Up by 4, they win with a td and could be up 2 to 4 depending on xp. Most likely 3 where we could tie by fg. Regular xp Up by 5, they win with a td and could be up by 1 to 3 points. Depending on xp. Worst case we tie with fg most likely we win by fg. So basically in any situation 7 pts loses you the lead and by not going for 2 you then give yourself the best chance to win with a fg after.

I don't ever get excited about USF's attendance possibilities, but if we were to play La Tech I would like to think we could get at least an extra 10,000 USF fans out of pure hatred.So that would make our total fan attendance about 10,500.

Temple & Cincy are much better than ECU? What does that mean? That they would be beat ECU head to head? At home? On the Road? Neutral Site? At what point in the season? With injuries? Coming off a bye or their toughest game of the season? How would all of those teams match up against us, that should be the argument. I do agree with you Temple & Cincy have better records than ECU. And Temple beat ECU in their place thanks to two blocked punts. But when it comes to our schedule I think ECU is our hardest game left remaining. I will take your bet, but I am hopeful we will just beat ECU and it will be a push.

Where are the listings of which recruits are visiting each week and what players are potentially interest in committing to play here? Seems like there is 0 activity on this board. Are we just not recruiting anyone? Is all that information available through pay subscription now so no one can post it? Feels like this board used to be filled with threads on 10-15 players we were hopeful of getting and now it seems to just be posts about old players that never came here.

See this line of thinking doesn't work and its the same argument of "well Tulane played Defense against Navy way better than we did". Well that's great for that week against that team but it doesn't mean anything the next week. So much of College football is about what teams put on tape and then gameplan for. If we came out and played the exact same defense as Tulane we would probably be better at it than they were since we have some great athletes on Defense, but guess what, Navy would probably be prepared for it now and have a new wrinkle to their gameplan designed to specifically to torch that matchup. For the upcoming week, ECU is completely different team on the road vs. at home, I also don't watch UConn enough to know if they did something differently against ECU to confuse them and stifle their offense or if they just beat them straight up. I have a feeling Allen is going to have a new blitz or 2 dialed up for ECU and think we have a good matchup. ECU favored by 3 at home basically means its a push (home team traditionally gets 3 points) and I think thats about right. I think we will win, but a loss does not mean we should expect losses to Temple or Cincy by any means.

So I took the time to read every one of your ignorant posts and have responded to every single one of them, so you can quit using that as an excuse to not admit when you are wrong. If I missed a point let me know and I’ll be happy to explain how you are wrong about that one too. 1) It is our money because unlike you, I and most of the people here continue to donate to our school by being season ticket holders instead of just quitting being a fan and actually rooting for the team to lose. And if you are so eager to fire WT this year who do you want to bring in? Because we will be competing with probably at least 10 other schools many of which are P5. Sorry but those are better jobs than ours currently, which sucks but we are trying to change that. A lot of that has to do with Holtz, Woolard and even Genshaft. But absolutely some of it does have to do with Willie too. 2) The last two years did suck and we are starving for a winning year. 6 and 6 is not the finishing point but it is a milestone in the road. If you are starving and someone hands you a can of spam you eat this **** as fast as you can and then use that to go try and make your next meal a steak. You don’t oh no I don’t want that, I’m just gonna keep ******** until someone brings me the perfect meal. 6-6 is absolutely spam or ramen whatever crap meal you want to call it, but it’s still food. Gives you something to build on, gives you extra practices, helps recruiting, etc. Next year, as brownbullsfan said, is when we build on that and compete for an AAC championship (steak). 3) If we don’t get to 6-6, by all means fire him. I and most others here agree that WT has made mistakes that have cost us games and he is responsible for those losses (Maryland and Memphis). But he has also made adjustments and has the team playing much better football the last 4 games. I fully expect to win at least 2 more and that could be as high as 6 more if we play to the full talent of this team. 4) Speaking of WT’s strong suit, he recruits talent. Everyone knows he’s better at recruiting than an X and O’s guy. But he has also adjusted his scheme this year because he knew he wasn’t cutting it. None of those guys you mentioned were high profile recruits. 5) The guys you did mention as being positives, Allen and Adams, were also the guys most responsible for this particular loss. You yourself said Allen’s defense wasn’t good enough to stop Navy’s offense. Adams fumbled the game away trying to make a play. But you know what it is still WT’s responsibility in the end so if we lose 3 more games the same way he’s gone. 6) If you would like to sit down and talk X and O’s about what exactly WT should be calling I’d be happy to meet you before the next home game and we can watch some tape. Because the early successful run game against Memphis was largely because of play design and granted he then should have opened up the pass, the 37 pts per game the previous 3 games were a big adjustment to play design and play calling. 7) I was ready to fire WT after Maryland and wanted Bench to play. Guess what I was wrong and the development of Flowers has been awesome to watch. Kudos to WT for picking a QB and sticking with his guy and then making adjustments to get us to 4-4. Another adjustment from prior years where we were divided between awful options at QB. 8) If you would like to talk specifics about this game. What adjustment would you have liked to have seen on offense? Navy shutdown the run (our bread and butter). QF was not 100% so the QB run was not as effective to open it up. We tried a couple differently designed run plays (not all run plays are the same, hopefully since you know what an Over is or at least know enough to use the word then you know there are different types of run plays). We also did pass it down the field, which was decently successful. You could argue we could have passed it more but when players drop crucial balls I don’t blame him for trying to go back to our staple. I’m sure he wants the drops correctly just as much as you do and is probably has those guys at the jugs machine after practice. What do you want him to do, supply them with some stick em’? 9) As for the personal attacks I’ve done nothing more than called you ignorant and stupid a couple times so try not use that as an excuse again, it’s just my honest opinion and not meant as an insult. But you seem to have no problem hurling them at others, especially considering usually those guys “setting up cones” at practices do have more knowledge than most because they see the gameplans being developed, understand how coaches think and react, and also see how a program is built if you happen to be around at the right time. Also a lot of those guys end up being future coaches themselves. As I’ve made pretty clear I am no WT homer. I was all for firing him when this team looked like ****. Hell I never wanted JL gone, but that's a post for another day. But if you don’t see this team is better than you are just being ignorant or unrealistic. I too want this program to be like we were back in 2007, but I will gladly take a bowl game this year and build a program over multiple years and have extremely high yet realistic expectations for the next season. I’m sure now you will respond with some grammar mistake or tell me how I must be sniffing WT’s jock. Have a good night and I look forward to your next post after we win. Really looking forward to you manning up to your word if we do manage to go 7-5, except on the other hand I really hope for the good of the human race that do not have the chance to procreate and pass on your genes. (I couldn't make it all the way through without an insult sorry).

USF 27-19 Mack Whitehead 409