MikePhillips

Respectfully I've been to most of the home games since the first one in 1997. I lived in Fontana with the original football team, had several of them as roommates. I used to hit softballs into their practice area during intramurals. Started at USF in 1996 when they were putting the team together. We can all mostly agree, that when Leavitt left, he took the soul of the program with him. What we are missing is the soul of the program. If we want our next coach to be a "destination" coach, a life'r, why not try it with a previous player? Aren't 95% of all college coaches, previous players themselves? My point is simple - we've had 4 coaches in 10 years.... and we are back in the dumps AGAIN looking for a new coach, AGAIN We've given 3 outside coaches a shot, 1 bailed and 2 were awful. If they suck, we fire them, if they are good, they leave. So why not try our luck with a former player?

Already are a laughing stock and have been for the past decade. We'll get a new coach, and two things will happen in less than 3 years - A) he does well and moves on to more money B) he looses horribly and we are right back to where we started We've had two B's and one A And we are on LIFE SUPPORT as a program right now. Literally on Critical Life Support.

So what past success, did Holtz, Taggart and Strong have, that they brought to the program? Did Holtz take us to the Sugar Bowl? Or the Orange bowl like he did with his past teams? Did Taggart recruit /develop a Heisman candidate like he did at Standford? Did Strong bring us two national championships like he did when we was with the Gators? Please tell me, what successes that Holtz, Taggart and Strong had in the past, that they brought to us at USF?

Was Holtz a good coach? If you remove Flowers from the offense, was Taggart a good coach? Was Strong a good coach? These were all supposed to be good coaches, and two crapped the bed and one left for more money... It seems that assuming "good coaches" ending up being "good coaches" is just as much as a dice roll as anything else. Strong was supposed to be a good coach, national championships, winning records, etc etc How did that work out? Lost 14 of our last 18 games If you are going to roll the dice, which we certainly have for the past 10 years, why not roll the dice on a former player who has coaching experience? Why not give him a shot? Give him 2 years... why not? We need a life'r... We have a better chance of a life'r with a former player than we do with this coaches who are just going to use us as a stepping stone to the bigger paychecks Past performance is ZERO indicator for future success. So why not try?

I'd ride or die with Larry Scott... a USF Program OG Then go get Jason Butler from Georgia to be our Linebackers/DB coach Then bring in Grothe / Q for QB coach We've spent like 20 million dollars on Holtz and Strong... more if you could Taggart who hauled tail as soon as someone offered him more money We need heart and soul back in the program. At this point, I'm not buying the "Well good players don't always make good coaches"... yea well good coaches don't end up being good coaches either If we are going to write a check, I'd MUCH rather watch the university write a check to a former Alumni / Former Player. 4 coaches in 10 years. Ya'll want Leavitt? Why not hire someone who played under him who's 20 years younger? Pick a couple people from this photo... I'll ride or die with any of them. Think they'd do worse than 14 losses in the last 18 games? I certainly don't

I personally knew Larry Scott when we lived in Fontana Hall together back in 1997-1999. great, great guy id love to see an OG have a shot at USF. He was an interim coach at UM also give him a shot! Why not!?!? I’d be down to see a USF OG as the head coach. It’s the closest thing to Leavitt we are going to get

We have fully committed to the run / run / pass / punt playbook Run for a yard run to the same place for no gain throw the ball in desperation punt I hope the coaches from UCF don't read this, I'm disclosing state secrets here

He had a bad night on the football field, it sucks... he’s a student athlete and life goes on Although the outcome wasn’t what we all wanted, he certainly tried his best and he’s got balls of steel to step up and try Much love and respect for him

he won a national championship with Nebraska as the starting QB... he beat Peyton Manning (who played for Tennessee at the time) in the Orange Bowl 42-17 Jesus if there is anyone to pin your hopes on rebuilding your program, it's him. It would be like us hiring Grothe, or even Quinton Flowers How do you say no to someone like that? Is there anyone who wants it more, than a quarterback who played for that school and won a championship with him as the QB? Yea yea yea we all know he coached UCF and handed our team it's ass... but besides that, I say pay the man. He earned it on the field as the QB, and I think he'll do alright as the coach in time.

We can't afford to buy him out and we can't afford a new coach... Unfortunately, right now... we need to just be happy with .500 and maybe a bowl game if we are lucky Let him finish up his contract, and with the money we save, try to find a better coach in the future after his contract is up. We can't afford any more instability in this program... we are in shambles and we made our bed with Strong, time to lie in it until it's over.

I was there!!!!

I tell ya interviews like that break my heart.... We gotta remember, this are students... USF students... USF Student Athletes who don't make **** risking their bodies out there on the field... and it's sad when it's a venture like this I certainly appreciate all the student athletes, the sacrifices they make on and off the field. And I definitely keep my fingers crossed that they escape this healthy and move on to bigger and better ventures.

I sat in the stands at Georgia Tech and watched him go into the half, losing, with two timeouts Charlie is notorious for going into the half with the offense on the field, while losing, with leftover timeouts and not taking them when we need them when time is running out I've seen him do this more times than I can count Here is the typical scenario * We get the ball with 90 seconds left on the clock before the half is over * we are on our 30 yard line * we don't get the ball back after the half * we have two timeouts * we are losing by more than a touchdown We run our typical "option read" up the middle, we don't gain any yards... we do it again... and go into the half with our timeouts It's awful... I've seen this happen so many times. I don't buy his excuses, I saw him do this firsthand at GT before going into the half

my dad watched it on ESPN from Texas.... Time to embrace what and who we are everyone... We are a .500 team and anything above that is an above average season The soul of this program left with Leavitt... the highlight reels of big-named teams that we beat on the jumbotron are from a decade (or longer) ago... We are a .500 team in a nobody conference. As someone who's been behind this team since 1996 when they were putting it together, as someone who still has their program from the first ever game, and has a football used in the first ever game, this is a .500 program, and our best hopes is just hoping to be bowl eligible at the end of the season

I still think this had something to do with it...

I did get a souvenir though.....

I was at that game, I was in Tallahassee and saw this FSU vs UM game from the stands It was awful... truly awful... Being a long time USF fan, I've seen what it looks like when players truly just give up And that's what I saw from the stands Players just truly gave up. blew my mind. I'm not a huge FSU fan, I went because my girlfriend went there. Thats the first FSU home game I've ever seen in my life and it just broke my heart. You see this historic campus, this historic stadium, truly one of the most amazing traditions in college football (Chief Osceola and Renegade), and players who were just completely unprepared for an average UM team 9 sacks? Their QB was just getting blown apart every other down, numerous penalties... I saw several 2nd and 25+ yards.. it was horrific Odell Haggins has been with this team for 20 years, they need to give this man a chance. Stop searching for a rescue coach, and just give the reigns the man who's been there this entire time Considering they gave Taggart a season and a half, you'd have to be clinically insane to take that job

Both... the costs to the university, in regards to letting 1 extra person sit in a classroom is seriously marginal. Does it cost anymore for a Teaching Assistant to teach 31 people instead of 30? Does it cost the university more money for a professor, to teach 201 students instead of 200? In a college with 40,000 students like USF, having 1,000 college athletes in the system is marginal at best. Give them the degree, and pay them based on profit sharing. "They get a free education, plus many of them go pro" - we all know most degrees are worthless out in the marketplace, and the overwhelming majority of the athletes never go "pro". How many USF football players have gone pro? Maybe 2 dozen in 20 years? 60-80 student athletes per year, and maybe 1 per year go pro? Thats hardly anything to bet your life and your health on Hand them a free degree and pay them.

They should 100% pay college athletes A "college degree" is a joke. 99% of the "college degrees" athletes get are a joke, 99% of the degrees that people get from USF are a joke. I have three of them, I know more than anyone College athletes are ADULTS, they are over 18, they are participating in a "product", the "product" makes huge amounts of money, and they 100% should be paid. Look at the list of the degrees USF offers... maybe a dozen of them, actually map to anything going on in the real world. And most college athletes, aren't exactly taking Engineering classes, or Accounting classes, or in the college of Medicine. They have to "short cut" their college education to make time for the athletics Read this list of nonsense- https://usfweb.usf.edu/academics/undergraduate-majors.aspx Interdisciplinary Social Sciences? General Studies? Marketing (my degree btw)? Pay them... pay them what's fair and pay them for what they bring to the university as a product. "They get a free edgur-curtion" is just nonsense

Apathy has long since kicked in I went to USF from 1996-2001 I went back for another degree from 2009 to 2011 I met a lot of new people and became friends with them, when I went back from 2009 to 2011 Most of the students, who went to USF post-Leavitt, have seen more losing seasons than winning ones fans who are 40+ years old, who were around during the creation of the team, seem to be the bread and butter of the fanbase Anyone who started at USF post-Leavitt, apathy has more than sunk in, in regards to support of the football team.

I'm more than happy with just being average at this point... 5-3 conference, 6-2 conference... we can 100% build on that You can build up from an average foundation, average is stability... I'd rather be halfway to a great team, than starting over from scratch every 5 years I'm cool with that

Here is what we know - Everyone in Central Florida wants UCF to move up Everyone wants UCF to make the college playoffs UCF UCF UCF UCF Why do we deserve ANY coverage whatsoever? What is there to report on? That we are the first college team in history to go 7-0, then 0-6? That we've lost 8 games straight? That we averaged 30+ points a game when we have Taggart / Flowers and now in our 2019 season we average 5 points per game? As someone who attended the first ever USF game in 1997, I wouldn't waste a drop of ink on our program either. It's all going to be negative at this point, and do more harm than good. Let's finish up with hopefully a .500 season, then write something about us. Other than that, I don't want to read it. Nothing to report

And have we ever hit Hootie? Can we give these poor kids Nerf Rockets or something to throw at Hootie? Why do you take a 115 pound female sophomore, and expect her to throw an NCAA College Football 30 yards to hit an moving inflatable owl Can we get these people some Nerf Rockets?

Tampa is Yankee fans Somehow we need to convince everyone, that USF is actually located in New York and they'll all come to the games