bullsbucsfan426

I'm sick of the sadness on this board. I'll be optimistic until we look bad again. We look good for one day and people can't just enjoy it, they'd rather still complain. To say we could be real good this year off of some hypotheticals from seeing one Spring practice off of last year is making major leaps. I am not complaining, not sure if you were referring to me. I like your optimism, as I stated earlier, but I guess I am more realistic in my expectations for the coming year. I think we have a lot to look forward to as a rebuilding program in the future (hopefully near future). It's not specifically you, just the board in general. Are we bad? Sure. But offseason is where teams get better. And every indication I've seen is that the team is a lot more positive and wants to get better. That's what let's me believe. What did you see the last few years that made you believe the players wanted to get worse? Nobody wants to get worse. However, if you aren't properly motivated, you will get worse, because you aren't doing anything to get better. Tell me, does it seem like we were doing much to get better under Holtz's regime? There's an answer for that-we weren't. Getting better is a matter of doing something good. Getting worse, is well, a factor mainly of complacency and lack of drive to get better.

I'm sick of the sadness on this board. I'll be optimistic until we look bad again. We look good for one day and people can't just enjoy it, they'd rather still complain. To say we could be real good this year off of some hypotheticals from seeing one Spring practice off of last year is making major leaps. I am not complaining, not sure if you were referring to me. I like your optimism, as I stated earlier, but I guess I am more realistic in my expectations for the coming year. I think we have a lot to look forward to as a rebuilding program in the future (hopefully near future). It's not specifically you, just the board in general. Are we bad? Sure. But offseason is where teams get better. And every indication I've seen is that the team is a lot more positive and wants to get better. That's what let's me believe.

Not surprised. I honestly felt he doesn't have the right skill set to be an athletic director. His current role is just too different. Still hoping they go after the IMG president. Would love that hire.

Would you compare this to SMU picking up Larry Brown then? Get a great mind, but old, and backfill with a younger coach for recruiting? Yes, except Howland has had a lot more success at the college level-but also keep in mind that Howland is 56. Brown is 73. Will he be here forever? No, but assuming he performs and doesn't get another offer Howland would be here for at least 9-10 years. Even if he wins a ton and heads off to another job that might be enough to re-energize the program. And lest i forget, this guy won in the Big East and also in the Pac-12...both of which are much better than the SEC where Heath was an average coach.

Man, we need posters with juice. And boosters with juice too. Hey, Smazza! Have you convinced Max Wittek to come here yet?

If we had our pick of any coach currently on the market I'd go get Ben Howland. he's won five conference championships and went to three final fours. He was only fired at UCLA for not winning a national title-if he had he would still be there. I have to believe Howland would win games here in Tampa if we can land him.

I'm sick of the sadness on this board. I'll be optimistic until we look bad again. We look good for one day and people can't just enjoy it, they'd rather still complain.

Well, let's hope that today is an indication of good things to come then.

That sounds good to me. Usually the defense is ahead of the offense in spring practice. If the offense is looking that good early, then there's reason to hope...they just have to keep looking that good. If the defense comes back and shows what they showed last year we could be real good this year.

We'll take him. Bring down some maple syrup will ya Neville?

Well, they're on their way there with the 52 of 62 players setting personal records. That's a step forward. We're also hearing that the work ethic has improved drastically. That's a bigger step forward. They're going to have to work all off season to be in the type of shape needed to be a top end team.

God help us if that happens. O'Liar will be trumpeting it to recruits for the next three four years "you want proof of my skills? See that guy over in Tampa? I coached him." Unless of course he busts, which I hope he does anyway.

So has anyone heard how it turned out on Thursday? Would be awesome if we heard the rest of the team had set new PRs.

I would like Paul Wulff to do some redistribution of touchdowns with our offense. But they have to grow.

Best advice I can give you for tax planning is to get out your last year return. Go get a copy of your year to date pay stub every three months and compare. If you have any new expenses that total up to an amount greater than the standard deduction, subtract it from your income on an annual basis (i.e. multiply it by 4 in the first quarter, 2, in the second quarter, etc.). If you see yourself behind on payments or where you want to be with a refund, go to your employer and adjust your withholding. Most people don't need to do much more tax planning than that.

who cares about other schools this is another thread we about how we need to accept losing blah blah blah we are young we dont have the money we dont have the reputation for winning we dont have the facilities our mentality is one of a loser How easily we forget that this team had only 2 losing seasons from 1997 to 2010. I'd argue the last three seasons are not going to be the norm.

Thanks Martin but most of this is pretty basic stuff. I've done returns with itemized deductions in 30 minutes if there are no states involved. Even then state returns for most folk are calculated by the software with a few extra questions for the most common credits. 99 percent of people don't even have state credits to claim.

I hope he gets even better. With him in Dallas and Pierre-Paul in NY, if they both turn into top end defensive players that will be a big boost for our program going forward.

1. Depends on how complex your return is. I don't know what you do, but if you've got a lot of itemizing, your own business, or you're claiming a lot of credits, it's probably better to file with someone. In all honesty, it WILL cost you a lot more though. Turbotax is cheap compared to the tax services (I work for one). 2. As for itemizing, here's what you need to do. Combine the income you got from your wages (see box 1 of your W-2(s)), any stock sales you had (short term capital gains is taxed same as your wages, long term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate), any interest and dividends, and any self employment income (as well as anything you might have in income terms). Then do the following. A. Multiply the total income by 10 percent. Compare your medical expenses against that number. Include all health insurance you paid yourself, out of pocket hospital costs, anything you paid for eye care (that's deductible too), dental costs,and any other medical expense you think you had. If your medical expenses are more than 10 percent of your income, slash off the ten percent from the total expenses and you have your medical deduction. Write that down. B. Next is taxes. Did you buy a new car last year? Any other large purchases? Go look at your sales documents and see how much the sales tax was. That's deductible. HOWEVER-if you have state withholding on your W-2, check to see which amount is more. Take the higher tax amount and add it to the calculation. THEN, if you paid any property taxes, add that in too. You can also add any foreign income taxes if you like, but truthfully that's better taken as a credit (since it results in dollar for dollar savings on your tax bill). C. Next is mortgage interest. Do you have a mortgage on your home? If so, the bank should have sent you a Form 1098. The 1098 will show you how much interest you paid. That is all deductible. HEADS up-you can usually find your property tax records on this sheet too, if you're paying everything through your mortgage payments. The bank all pays it through an escrow account. Add the mortgage interest to the calculation. NOTE-if you did any private lending, that you didn't receive a 1098 for, you can still deduct it. Just ask your lender for a record of how much interest you paid. D. Do you have any charitable contributions? You should have an official record from the organization showing how much you donated. If it was property, they should have given you a record showing the Fair Market Value at the time of donation. If they didn't, I recommend googling online to get a ball park idea. Ebay is handy. E. Were you in any car crashes or other unexpected disasters (earthquake, fire, your roof collapsed due to snow). Congratulations! That stuff (less insurance reimbursements) is deductible! If you were in a car crash, what I usually do is just take the Kelley Blue Book Value of the car before the crash, and then I subtract out any insurance proceeds. F. Finally, and this one can be big for you-employee business expenses. If you are an employee (not a business owner), then you can write off certain expenses. These include dry cleaning and suit purchases (believe it or not, if you need them for your job they're considered "uniforms"). Any Continuing professional education you had, basically anything related to your job that you weren't reimbursed for. ONE BIG CAVEAT-you can't deduct commuting mileage if you're an employee. 1099 contracters get to, but not W-2 employees. However, you can deduct from business to business mileage/expenses. You can take the standard mileage deduction (around 50 cents per mile driven) or your actual expenses (this can get a little more hairy, but your gas, insurance, etc.). The car deduction is rather messy and I don't recommend taking it if you haven't kept a mileage log of where and when you drove for what. Also be aware-once you calculate your total business expenses, you need to shave two percent of your income (same number as the medical expenses earlier), to arrive at your deduction. After. you do all this, compare your total amount against $12,200. If you clear that bar by at least $500, I'd recommend you go ahead and itemize. If it's close, go ahead and take the standard deduction-otherwise you have to keep all those expense records for 3 years and record keeping for that little really isn't worth it. Questions? I'm open to any other questions from anyone. Hem-see your inbox. I'll message you my phone # if you have any further questions. EDIT: Apologies, I forgot to add this. If you're married, compare against the $12,200 number. If you're single, use $6100. If you're not married but have kids, use $8950.

Looks like they're trying to keep UCF in the title race with easy games. How they don't face Cincy is beyond me. IMO Cincy and Houston should be the favorites this season. If Mike White turns into a quality QB, then I think we're there as well. The talent will have to come around down the stretch though and we need to go 3-0 against the Carolina schools. Maryland is a good team and Wisconsin is too-not sure how we'll do against them that early in the season.

Well, last year's home schedule was a lot better, but this one is good in it's own right. Aside from getting revenge on UCF I"m most looking forward to the N.C. State game-they've been a team we've dominated in the past and they weren't very good last year, so it's a good chance at getting an early win.

Does it vibrate and go "ACKKK!!!" every time there's a notification?

No. This year's theme should be dream team.

Madam, your nephew is a good player. I'm actually surprised he hasn't gotten public attention from the USF coaching staff given the school and his film. STA is one of the top programs in the state-and if what you're saying is correct, he's a hard worker with a lot of discipline. That's a kid who won't go wrong in football or in any walk of life. These are the sorts of players which coaches love to have.

I think he ends up at LSU. If he becomes a bull I send a green and gold cake to taggart for his recruiting abilities