njligernj

First off thanks for the heads-up by multiple posters that they aren't Bucs fans. I'll update my list. Anyway as much as I'd like to see him stick he is signed as a camp body and I'd be shocked if he was suiting up in the fall. Still .... gives him a shot and that's nice to see.

Agreed. The stats don't back it up (I remember seeing our on-campus rate was higher than many schools nobody would ever DREAM of calling a commuter school) but people still say it ... so what can we do? Develop a complex about it or just focus on other far more important things. People who say things like "oh that's a commuter school" are usually the most tiresome bores on the planet anyway. For all the cliched stuff about Ivy League grads its often grads of other non-ivy league schools who are the most eager to demean another schools for various arbitrary reasons that don't really matter to anyone in the real world.

Being born in England and having attended loads of Premier League games I'm supposed to hate this (was that the Thriller dance?!?!?) .... but I think it's great. The "everyone hates us ... we don't care" hooligan stuff is more myth than reality these days (although there are still isolated instances in some places across Europe I would feel fine taking a kid to a Premier League game ... and many people do ... although that said people took their kids in the hooligan soaked 80's as well so that proves nothing). Hopefully it catches on and makes attending the games more of an event people want to come and see. The thing about football (as in the team Skip Holtz used to coach) is that there are a hundred plus years of "rules" about what fans can and cannot do. You get a band ... just like everyone else. You get a student section, people paint their faces/chests and do all the other same things all the other teams (with five generations of support and 100,000 people in the building) are doing and it's hard to stand out. With football (soccer football) it can be a completely different experience that the fans are free to create as they see fit without any set rules taking influences from all over the world. I really hope it catches on and a more people join in. Good luck to them. Is there much singing? You've got to have popular songs converted to include the names of players. Never sing YNWA though ... ugh.

EDIT: Sorry didn't see the new head coaching forum area. MODZ please move if appropiate. Sorry. So Taggart appears to be a serious candidate (people have confirmed in the press that USF have contacted them as a reference). So I'd like to know more about the (press) front-runner. Here is what I have learned from around 100 articles/MB posts on Taggart: 1) He'd be great at recruiting Florida. 2) See point 1. This is unquestionably very important. However I have some other questions: Does he know when to call timeouts? Or, in a less one last dig at Holtz phrased question: Where does he fall on the game manager spectrum? Closer to Andy Reid or closer to Belichik? Have anyone ever watched WKU or spoken to their fans? What is the general offensive/defensive strategy? Does he call plays or does he have a play calling OC and DC? Are we stuck with his assistants (not that they are good or bad -- I have no idea -- but as a rule I would rather poach some talent rather than have whomever he managed to get as an assistant at WKU come here ... might be an unfair assumption on my part) or would there be room (assuming there is room in the budget and/or ability to attract someone to the role) to get a OC/DC from elsewhere? (I realize this is perhaps difficult to know but perhaps he recently had a DC leave so he might not be attached to them v. "oh yeah he's had the same assistants the entire time he's been a coach and they are all probably coming along.") Is he the type to think "outside the box" (cliché I know) or he is a more traditional football thinker? Does he "take the three points here" or does he think "going for it on fourth has an expected value of 3.7 points v. 3 for the FG so I will go for it from here."

In the last few decades the amount of money controlled by a small percentage of people has grown significantly. If they are giving it all away that would not happen. They have every right to do it just as he has every right to say it's selfish to do that. However the facts speak for themselves -- the rich have accumulated a higher and higher percentage of the overall pool of money with each passing year. So yes they are essentially Scrooging it up in a vault. Building a hospital wing doesn't change the facts -- people in the 20's might have been fooled by that but after decades of the same stuff less and less people are fooled. There's a storm coming Mr. Wayne. Those statements are not mutually exclusive. Both can be true and both are true. It's true it is their money and they can do what they like and its true its selfish to hoard money among a smaller and small group of people. There is almost no economist in the entire world who would tell you the economy and capitalism in general would not be stronger if they took a portion of that wealth and paid their employees a higher wage. They could end the recession today if as a group they decided to "trickle down" that money. It is their right to keep their money -- they earned it -- but I am not going to pretend it isn't a selfish act. Again ... their right to do what they want. Just like it is USF's right to retain Skip Holtz and our right to say it's a horrible decision. I could donate way more money to charity than I do. I got a thing in the mail the other day about buying a goat and I just threw it in the garbage without thinking about it. It was a selfish act. I could easily afford it. I literally wouldn't even notice the money was gone. I could buy ten goats. 100! It is my right to decide I want to buy a second house and a BMW instead. I am not going to lie to myself and others and pretend its not selfish however. I should probably buy the goat though ... in hindsight that was kind of a **** move. Sorry for OT ... although this is a thread about the powerball lottery which is essentially fantasy so it was way OT to begin with.

I sent a PM but if you need another player I'm in. Thanks.

Good. We deserve to be spoiled. We should have the best college stadium in the land and until we can build that stadium we should stay in one of the best pro stadiums in the land. We all believe this program will grow in the years to come; so why settle for an average (or worse) stadium now when, in future years as a major program, we can build a state of the art stadium. I dislike the idea we should "settle" for an average stadium just to say we have our own building. If "you don't have your own stadium" is the best smack talk anyone can come up with for us then we must be doing pretty **** fantastically on the field itself.

Despite using the comparison, ultimately I don't care what happens at UF. If EVERYONE at UF wore FSU hats I still wouldn't want to see ONE FSU hat at USF. As I said before, we should aim to have the highest standards. Whatever might happen elsewhere, it still doesn't look good to have a lot of other schools stuff on our campus. Not everyone is willing to put up with catching grief everywhere they go for wearing a hat or a t-shirt.

People, people, people. We're getting distracted with this debate about USF's standing. The point is that they shouldn't be wearing other school's stuff in our "house." Peer pressure *DOES* work to a large degree. Can you imagine people walking around with FSU stuff at Florida? Granted these schools aren't our direct rivals (yet) but for crying out loud it makes us look bush league to let that happen. We need to start (verbally) cracking some skulls of these traitors. It is always going to happen? Maybe. Are these people idiots? Sure. None of that changes the fact that we shouldn't let it happen without at least some ridicule for those people. Get over it? I'm not staying up at night worrying about it but I also don't think encouraging people to make it uncomfortable for these people is that big of a deal. Just because it happens elsewhere doesn't mean it should happen here. We should aim to have the highest standards -- not just put up with things.

A 3.0 rating (which was just a guess on my part of course -- I think it will be in the high 2's or low 3's ... obviously some of it [for casual sports fans] depends on the quality of the game) would be just over 4 million people. As a point of comparison, Florida v. Auburn on Saturday got 5.17 million viewers (had competition from other football games). A relatively large number of people will be watching. As someone else said, certainly far more than usual. If it's a good game and the baseball is not we could see quite a surprising number.

I need one of those hockey jerseys. Bulls Heaven doesn't seem to have any. Can you not buy them anywhere?

exbull - The first post (and a lot of posts in this thread) use a feature in which they type a code and then as a result anyone who is viewing the thread thinks it is about them. In other words, all the times in the thread you see "exbull" I see "njligernj" on my computer. Someone else sees whatever their name is. So everyone sees their screenname. The thread isn't about you.

Oh it'll beat our game ... no doubt. I'm just taking issue over people talking like the World Series is something that the entire nation watches. Attendance may be up at the ballparks but the World Series hasn't broken a 20 share since 1992. The '86 series got a 48 share to last years 19. Even if you take last year out, the last five years have been between 20 and 25. People can talk about cable killing network shares all you want but people still watch football (even though Sunday Night Football is a mistake -- they tried to change a working system -- there is too much competition and family hassle on Sunday night: "we've watched football ALL day honey -- the last eight hours have been football and now I want to watch Desperate Housewives). Does anyone like the new arrangement more? Anyway I'd put the over-under at around a 14 rating for the WS. I'd put the over-under for our game at around 3.0.

I don't know why there isn't an NFL game on -- even a lousy SNF game would equal the WS. Pre-season football games have scored higher ratings than the world series. Pre-season! So to suggest the nation will all be watching the world series is a stretch. Last years series was the lowest rated ever. Even with the Mets they'll be in the 13-15 range.

I'll be watching the game on TV here in Canada. Those of you a little closer should definitely be there in person.