bullsbucsfan426

I think we need to organize a prayer meeting in the name of Jesus for our team every time they face UCF then. I will pray for them.

While the fitness and injury issues in USF football have been well documented, I find it increasingly disturbing that our other to significant sports (men and women's basketball) are also suffering injuries. Yetna could have been chalked up to a freak accident and I can live with that. But WBB has now lost Bethy Mununga and Eliza Pinzan to injuries. I haven't really looked into the non-revenue sports, but I wouldn't be surprised if injuries happened there too. Why is this happening? At some point this becomes more than a coincidence-why are so many teams losing players to injury?

It takes two to tango. USF is tight lipped, the information is coming from the other end.

I have been reading the "behind the paywall" stuff over at Rivals and all in all it is actually pretty good content, not necessarily elite booster level content but significantly more than the average fan would get. I don't know if board donors here get to hear anything similar if they've donated enough. All I'll say is that MK is working his way down the list, the hire may come out of left field, and at least 3 of the top candidates that have been mentioned have already said no. It's mostly 247 and the TBT working the CWT angle. At this point I want to see Leavitt if he's open for it just because of the shot in the arm the program would get for a year or two. The Big East fan base would show up just because of him, at least until they realize what a rebuild we have in store.

Agreed. I read back in 2013 that while the team was utterly lacking in talent, an opposing coach described them as difficult to beat simply because they battled their hearts out every single game. Had they been in proper conditioning that year and had good coaching, the 2013 team would have at least gone bowling.

Won't say where i heard it but Spurrier did reach out to USF with that exact idea in mind.

And some insightful commentary in between. I'll go on record and say that I'm good with any hire as long as there's a reasonable basis for it, but that's normal. We have to have a high quality guy coaching the team.

Perhaps my verbiage was wrong, but I was stating that. I have seen the same tweets you have.

I don't recall seeing Grothe playing a role in Leavitt being gone. Perhaps I missed it. Flowers and Adams have both begged USF to get them involved with the program. Flowers has been publicly tagging Kelly on his twitter posts asking for a meeting with him and Rodney Adams is interesting in coaching the WRs (although I suspect that if he wants to coach, they would get him involved as a GA or similar first). Flowers actually had a post out there where he tagged Kelly, Mack, and Grothe, and Adams. Grothe was all over it.

It would be insane if the hire was already made. I mean, I feel confident that Kelly has had his rolodex open all year because he know there was a good possibility he'd have to conduct a search, so he could have already set a list in place.

Leavitt as a DC at Oregon and Colorado was decent but not excellent. He allowed about 20 PPG over two years at Oregon (with the caveat that the defense looked a lot better in key games in 2016), but he allowed 26 PPG over two years at Oregon (and yes, I know they were rebuilding). I'm wondering if that is a key factor in him not getting another HC opportunity just yet. I do need to point out that Oregon let him go after 2018, he did not leave on his own terms. Would he succeed at USF? I think he would, but it would be an uphill climb for two years. The damage to the program right now is pretty bad and Leavitt is not going to be able to fix everything in one off-season. I have already written off the game against UCF next year, and for Leavitt that would suck as they finally have the "Leavitt doughnut" off their back. I also question his ability to get good coordinators. Towards the end of the Leavitt Era, he was having to replace coordinators regularly, and he would need to have good coordinators. You may almost want to keep Kerwin Bell if Leavitt comes back because then there's some stability on the coaching staff. Shaun King absolutely needs to stay, he coached Flowers and Flowers was fantastic, he's coached the RBs, and it seems like we've just churned out good RBs year over year (even Sands wasn't bad this year, and Joiner and Ford go without saying-at least when Ford got on the field). That said, watching the engagement on Twitter, the massive enthusiasm from past players, fans, and alumni about a potential Leavitt return-it could very well be worth it. Rehiring Leavitt would provide a huge shot in the arm to USF's community engagement. and you know that he will do the work to rebuild the program-I have to believe he is still passionate about USF football. I had a conversation with Michael Kelly earlier this year at a basketball game-Leavitt carried the torch for this program tirelessly. He went to every Rotary, Kiwanis, and Chamber of Commerce event in the Tampa Bay area. He pounded the ground for this program to try and get fan support. He's still 62 and if he plays his cards right he could be here another 12-15 years, it's not uncommon for coaches to coach into their 70s if they're successful. He would also have something here that we never had in his first go around here-a stable conference with clear opponents. He would not have to try and face the Big East with C-USA recruits again. You bring Leavitt back, then you have Matt Grothe and so many others pounding the ground. Flowers, Mack, and Rodney Adams have all expressed some desire to be engaged with USF and that would happen under Leavitt. Selvie and JPP could be involved as well, and also Kawika Mitchell and Stephen Nicholas, these guys would all be ambassadors for the program. I would also point out here that we would all but seal up Immokalee, where D'Earnest Johnson's high school for the foreseeable future as Louis Gachette is head coach there.

The students already contribute nearly 20 million a year to the athletics budget. At what point is it fair to ask them for more?

He may be looking for loopholes to push strong out at lower cost.

Mike Canales had great games against cupcakes, almost never did anything vs. good teams. His O was pretty much Grothe scrambling, three level routes, and running the ball a ton. He currently coaches at UTEP, where his offense is pretty much impotent.

I'm going to be in MBA classes all day, won't make the game. Message me

If this defense was in the P5 Strong would be attracting the type of defensive talent that would rank us top 5 in the country defensively. We'd likely be like Auburn-not good enough to beat anyone with a pulse on defense, but good enough to cause problems for pretty much anyone else.

Fools should have had to come to Tampa. They didn't even belong on the field against this USF squad.

I'll celebrate that they're in the tourney, but it's a little ridiculous that we're not hosting given UF is worse. Stupid NCAA.

In fairness it should never have been him. Yetna and Kiir are the top 2 bigs. One is injured, the other seems to have pulled a Johnny Ford.

I'm almost tempted to say we should design plays that force the opponent to foul excessively in the first five minutes. If their starters are in foul trouble then our starting five can pull away early.

Yes, and this isn't just missing Yetna. Just no sense in terms of passing or play.

We've been in on 3. Losing battles to ACC schools on them. The Oak Hill guy is the third.

I wonder if we can make a parody of that for Strong.

Durr would likely score 60 points per game against the WBB schedule. The best women's centers wouldn't even be able to touch him in the post.

The ability of this defense to force turnovers is the most concretely real part of this turnaround. They've forced turnovers against literally every team we've played. It would have been nice to be 5-3 going into the bye with a chance to repeat 2015 (getting bowl eligibility against Temple). With a bye week to heal up I wouldn't rule us out against Temple and Memphis, but we have to understand that Memphis is a very good football team and there is a reason they are 7-1. If the turnaround is real, we could very well be 5-6 going into a tough road game at UCF, but I'm not ready to believe until we beat Temple. God that GT loss sucks!