The only reason to have excuses is to appease fans who think that its totally normal to expect to go to bowl games every year. EVERY team old enough to be of legal drinking age (21) or older has many losing seasons throughout their history. Those teams have either fired or hired new coaches. Keeping or hiring has proved to guarantee nothing. Coaches kept after a 0 win season have come back the next year and had 8 or 9 win seasons. Coaches kept after a horrible season have continued to lose. Coaches hired after a losing season have continued the losing and somehow made the situation worse. Coaches hired after a coach has been fired for a losing season have turned the team around. Of course in that situation you run a chance of being in the same one as Rich Rod at Michigan who came in with a totally different scheme and had no players that fit it. He also didn't fit into the culture and in the time given him couldn't find a way to win like he did at WVU.
I am not saying Holtz should stay. What I am saying is that it is reasonable to expect losing seasons in college football and that next year could be the best in USF history or the worse regardless if Holtz is fired or replaced. It is all in the norm of what has happened in the history of college football. I want a winning team. I know in the grand scheme of things its much harder to have that happen and even when it does you can do the same thing the same way the following season and lose. I think that is where Skip is at now. He has won with his formula, different players, slightly different staff, and its not working at USF...this year. It may or may not in another. No guarantee that a new coach would do no better, no matter how they did elsewhere. At least not the level of coach USF can attract to this conference.
What I want to know is that if Skip is kept and has a 10 win season next year, how many on this board are going to still want him gone. It seems that some want him gone even if he wins the Orange bowl, which looking at the history of college football is in the realm of possibles.
Just cause he does some of the dumbest things I have ever seen,.........that is all