Mike Stuben

I was really hoping that for the Senior Game we went to gold helmet, green jersey and green pants. Just like the old days. Uniforms are a big part of tradition. It would be nice to see some consistency. NO GOLD PANTS!!!

Gold is one of our schools colors. Agree that green pants should be worn with the green jersey, but the gold pants should not be taken away. Wear them on the road.

I'm not huge of wearing gold pants on the road because we have to wear white jerseys, and no matter the helmet, we end up looking like another school that is white/gold or something.

Add a green stripe to the gold pants, and they could be a cool item they keep for special occasions, kinda like the Nebraska Blackshirts or something. I still think all green at home works the best, encourages the green out theme, and gives us a consistent home thing we can be proud of. Plus the all green is darker and more menacing than white and gold stuff. Watching videos of JPP and Selvie and others wearing all green (gold or green helmet is fine) just looks so awesome.

Pretty sure Nebraska has never worn blackshirts ... those are practice jerseys that are given to defensive players as an honor for their toughness (and have to be earned) ... but not a game jersey.

I think I remember WKU being Russell .... but I am not sure. The thing I didn't like about their look, was that their road "whites" were actually gray.

I don't know the stories behind these two kids ... so forgive me on that.

Transfers happen for good and bad reasons.

Good reasons include: homesick, ill family member (not that someone being ill is good, but the desire for a kid to be closer to home with a family member who is ill is noble), 5th year after graduating allowed to transfer without sitting out.

Bad transfer reasons include: arrest, discipline, couldn't get along with the coach, unreasonable expectations of playing time.

We have taken kids who fall into both categories. Kids from the first category often work out: Kevin Guidry, Mistral Raymond (and Grant Gregory transferring to Kansas State is a great example too). Kids from the second category almost never work out (across all sports, not just football).

Not judging either of these kids, Just an observation that seems so simple, but doesn't always resonate with coaches.

agree Triple,. We already have one of the lowest if not lowest prices in the country. Season Tickets started for what 99.00 a ticket? Thats 18 Home games for 99 Bucks. (Thats 5.50 per game). Throw in the 10 dollars for parking and its 15.50 per game total( game ticket and parking) . The price listed on the 99 season ticktes is 15.00 per game. So your getting a bargain.

I know our FB tickets are one of the cheapest BCS conference tickets around as well.

The school/ athletic dept needs to make money somewhere to keep us competitive. Look at the parking as a donation to improving the overall athletic program.

I agree too, and remember, it is a cost vs. value judgement. There is plenty of free or cheap parking spaces, it just requires a longer walk. Just look around at parking costs at other events, $10 seems to be in line ..... and for those Bulls fans out there who see this as a make or break fee .... then come out to more Soccer, Volleyball, Women's Basketball, Baseball and Softball .... all those sports offer free parking.

I had been to every Beef/St. Pete/MagicJack bowl, until last night. I picked the basketball. Glad I did. If you enjoyed seeing a football game, then don't regret it .... as long as you enjoyed what you were doing, no need to worry about what else you might have been doing. Heck, you could have been climbing Mt. Everest yesterday too.

What is the worst that could happen ????

My wife (who hardly ever comes) and my mom (who makes most of the games) both canceled for tonight's MBB game vs. Bowling Green.

I am in section 114 row A , seats 3-4 are available .... literally 2 seats off the aisle that is on the center court stripe. Front Row ... you can hear the game ... hearing the coaches talk to the players and refs, and the players talking to each other.

Face value is $40 a ticket, but I'll make them buy one get one free .... so $40 gets you both of them.

Let me know if you are interested.

With the departure of the Basketball Seven, some, if not all, of those football only schools probably become all-sport schools.

A few years ago I watched SDSU beat UCONN in the NCAA regional at the (now) TBT Forum. Im not sure why they wouldnt have been an all sports member to begin with. Now, does Boise State even have basketball (just checked and yes they do) Im thinking those two dont even make it to the BE. Even ECU fans acknowledge their hoops program is not good. But they are in N. Carolina so youd think there would be some spillover fans & talent.

Just a quick correction, That wasn't SDSU .. it was the University of San Diego Toros (not the SDSU Aztecs) ..... completely different school. (and not a Big East candidate)

I am pretty ok with this, but I wonder if this means BYU / Air Force are no goes.

Was at the game last night and Noticed that some( few people) had Basketballs with USF logo's on them, After the game asked someone and was told they were given to season ticket holders? Anyone know about this? I didnt get one, Im a donor and season ticket holder in FB and BB.

On the flip side I did get a Xmas card today of the BB team in the mail from USF.

It was a ball commemorating last year's NCAA run. I believe to get the ball you had to have basketball season tickets both last season and this season. If you qualify, you should have gotten an email.

16 school league .... 8 in the east ... 8 in west ..... minimal trips to the other division. All full members, only possible exception is Navy:

East:

USF

Cincinnati

UConn

UCF

Temple

ECU

Memphis

Navy

West:

Boise

SDSU

BYU

UNLV

SMU

Houston

Tulane

Air Force

Alternates if someone leaves or if someone says no: West - Nevada, Colorado State East: (move Tulane to the East), Marshall

Take Basketball - play your division twice (14 total games) ... then play 4 teams from the other division, 2 home and 2 road. So there would be 4 schools you didn't play each year ... or you could say you played everyone at least once every other year.

Rotate the MBB and FB Conference championship game between east and west, so each side hosts one or the other each year (Vegas, is the logical west site). MBB championship site is a preselected city ... Football is at the site of the school from the division that is the host side (or higher seed, I guess, and just rotate MBB) .... Put the WBB tourney at UConn every year, assuming they are in the league.

FB, Play your division once, and 2 teams from the other side, one home and one road, so you play everyone at least once every 4 years.

If we can get about 5million per team then I am all for it.

Might be more profitable to expand to only 12

If you only have 12, and don't offer a real, full membership west division, we will lose Boise and SDSU. I think we get about $4 million now, If we can get $1 more per season it is a win, since our current deal is based on the reputation and strength of a lot of schools that are leaving.

16 school league .... 8 in the east ... 8 in west ..... minimal trips to the other division. All full members, only possible exception is Navy:

East:

USF

Cincinnati

UConn

UCF

Temple

ECU

Memphis

Navy

West:

Boise

SDSU

BYU

UNLV

SMU

Houston

Tulane

Air Force

Alternates if someone leaves or if someone says no: West - Nevada, Colorado State East: (move Tulane to the East), Marshall

Take Basketball - play your division twice (14 total games) ... then play 4 teams from the other division, 2 home and 2 road. So there would be 4 schools you didn't play each year ... or you could say you played everyone at least once every other year.

Rotate the MBB and FB Conference championship game between east and west, so each side hosts one or the other each year (Vegas, is the logical west site). MBB championship site is a preselected city ... Football is at the site of the school from the division that is the host side (or higher seed, I guess, and just rotate MBB) .... Put the WBB tourney at UConn every year, assuming they are in the league.

FB, Play your division once, and 2 teams from the other side, one home and one road, so you play everyone at least once every 4 years.

Here is the math:

Less tickets sold, declining ticket prices, lower donations raised, debt paying off former football coach(es), debt paying off new olympic sport facilities, debt paying off Sun Dome renovations, less bowl revenue, less tv revenue

equals

No realistic shot at an OCS (not saying it was a priority, but it certainly can't be one now)

until

we move to a power conference

(I am not saying this is a forever problem, but there is really no need to talk about an OCS now ... unless we get an invite to a better conference dependent on an OCS)

I’m not sure that I agree with these sentiments. I think we all understand that money is a significant barrier, however that is the case with everything in life. We cannot just throw our hands in the air and be passive participants in our own future.

Unless FSU bolts the ACC, there is no guarantee that a power conference will be calling on USF anytime soon. The conference reshuffling has followed a very predictable pattern with AAU membership and established programs at the forefront. Louisville was the first program to break that mold as the Big East had no more AAU schools left, but they certainly have a large following. Syracuse just recently lost AAU membership.

I think the stadium issue is a chicken and egg scenario. Do you passively wait to get the call to the “big leagues†or do you take matters into your own hands and continuously invest in your program.

Certainly the trend around the country is moving to on campus facilities, we can always point to the few programs who do not operate in this manner but they are few and far between, and nobody thinks that those schools are making it work. USC and UCLA are essentially the sole tenants of their stadiums, I do not consider them in USF’s situation.

Will an iconic structure such as a stadium change the perception of the campus? Will it help recruiting? Will having alumni and fans now on the campus during gameday instill more university pride and giving? Will games be better attended by students? Will all this lead to more success in terms of wins, losses, and fanbase? Will this improve Judy's graduation rates? We just don't know.

We invested in the other sports facilities, but this is all about football, football, and football. If soccer, softball, and baseball improved ticket and merchandise sales 1000%, it would still be peanuts compared to the potential from benefits from football. Do we say these were bad investments?

We like to make fun of UCF, but if you talk to anyone from that school they feel the stadium has been a huge success. Even most of the hardcore fans on this board agree that they have a better game day atmosphere, and what will we say if they upgrade, add a façade and have something very similar to Doak Campbell.

I do not feel we need something like the University of Minnesota, a 40,000 seat stadium designed for expansion would easily suffice.

I just worry that the longer USF procrastinates on the issue the further we fall behind, only time will tell. Again, of course money is a significant barrier, but it is a barrier to every venture in life. We do not know what we can raise until we try and debt is not neccessarily a bad thing if it is towards a good investment.

I love the attitude, but it is one thing to say "let be proactive" but the question remains, is it possible.

Please understand, USF Athletics wrote checks on the future Big East TV contract being over $10 million per school per year. It now may be 75% lower. Right now USF is facing a crisis of how to pay for everything they went into debt to build and now don't have the revenue stream to pay for. We are paying some coaches and administrators at big time program levels, and USF in the Big East will not be bringing in big time program revenues. When we built a soccer stadium, baseball stadium, renovated track and football facilities, softball stadium and renovated the Sun Dome, we didn't write a check ... we borrowed money. Money we now have to pay back. Yes we raised some of it with donations, but I would assume well over 50% of those costs are still on our balance sheet as debt.

If the Big East dissolves, then we may lose the one thing we had going for us, one more year of big time. No Big East means no BCS money for next season (remember, the BCS still exists next year).

Let me be clear, no one is to blame. When we started construction on those projects no one could have seen this coming.

When we entered C-USA it was a step up, and we could easily increase spending to put us in line with our new league. As our league slips backwards to a quasi C-USA, we have a big trouble, because we have all sorts of money commitments that are at levels that are too high for our new surroundings.

This has no impact on the power conferences ... any Big East school they want, they could have had before. This doesn't create any urgency for them.

For us, this certainly creates an urgency. Unfortunately we are selling something that right now no one is buying.

Here is the math:

Less tickets sold, declining ticket prices, lower donations raised, debt paying off former football coach(es), debt paying off new olympic sport facilities, debt paying off Sun Dome renovations, less bowl revenue, less tv revenue

equals

No realistic shot at an OCS (not saying it was a priority, but it certainly can't be one now)

until

we move to a power conference

(I am not saying this is a forever problem, but there is really no need to talk about an OCS now ... unless we get an invite to a better conference dependent on an OCS)

I would tend to believe that the decision as to whether he stays or goes will rest with Taggart, unless it was agreed before CWT took the job to retain Cosh. Also, would Cosh still want to be coaching under CWT especially if he gets demoted?

Lots of questions still unanswered there.

Have to wait and see when the dead period starts what CWT is going to do regarding HIS staff at USF.

Absolutely agree that it is Coach Taggart's decision, unless this was told to him as a condition of taking the job. (For example, I read somewhere that a condition was that scholarship offers had to be honored .....which is the right thing to do)

Big test in the next home game. Not sure how we will match up against Nebraska, but we don't have to wait for UConn and Notre Dame .... we will get a good look at our team this week.

We have 2 top 100 wins, and dispatched of both teams pretty easily. At the end of the year our strength of schedule should be tough enough not to be an issue.

Realism - we have not done anything to prove we are a top 25 team right now ...... but we haven't done anything to disprove it either.

As a fan (been to all the home games) we have plenty of players to shoot and score. No issues there. We right now have several solid point guards and bigs, but lack someone to be dominant at either position. If you haven't watched us (really in the last 9 years ... since our style of play is very consistent).. Coach Fernandez loves to push the ball up the court. We play a very fast up tempo style. It can be lots of fun to watch.

Two side notes ... next time you are in the dome, look at the rafters for the women's team banners. With a post season trip this year, we will be on a 9 postseason trips in 10 years run, pretty impressive for a team that had 0 postseason appearances before that current run started (ever, in the history of the program).

Second .... $7 for adults (I think) and free for kids is an incredible deal ... and almost always gets free movie tickets too. Just like the men's games, if USF scores 60 or more points, take your ticket stub to Kanes for a free Muvico Pass (good for 2 weeks from game day, not valid on Friday or Saturday).

Money may be an issue. Don't be shocked if Coach Cosh is retained for 1 year until his contract is up. He may not be the coordinator, but we may not be willing to pay him to not work.

The one saving grace, his contract allows us to deduct any money he earns as an assistant somewhere else from what we pay him, so if we do let him go, then we can hope he gets a relatively good paying job to reduce our liability to him.

If you read all the doom and gloom about the Big East, and its next TV deal then you understand why every penny may need to be watched. I am pretty sure USF still has a lot of debt to pay on all the new facilities ... and if the tv revenue is 80% less than what was projected .... and salaries keep going up (head football coach excluded) .... and ticket and donation revenue appears to be heading down in the future ..... then where will the money come from to pay assistant football coaches to not coach?

I am numb to all of this. At this point 100% of our effort has to be dedicated to getting out. Lets be honest, football head coaching hire is pretty meaningless in comparison. If we are stuck in this league might as well have kept Skip, he is a proven winner and we just had to wait until the level of competition was lowered to his comfort level. (I don't really mean that... Taggart plus Skip's buy out is cheaper than just keeping Skip .... so if coach Taggart can equal what Skip would have done it is a positive, and I believe he will exceed it)

If the day comes where we play ECU or Tulane and don't have an invite to the ACC/Big 12 then you may have to evaluate if big time athletics is sustainable at USF. Without a major bailout we may have trouble making the debt payments on all of the new facilities we have. And many of our salaries will be unsustainable (both Athletic administration and head coaches).

Am I going to miss Providence, no. What I just said is valid if the basketball schools stay or leave.

Coach Taggart, win ..... win big .... and win fast. Strong football is our only hope of a better future.

If the Big East cares about tv sets, UNLV seems like a good choice, and fans of all the other schools love to go to Vegas. The Big East will need a western bowl, and no place better than Vegas .....

but ....

Right now, Basketball trumps football at UNLV, so will they take a football only invite to the BIG EAST and have their basketball thrown out of the Mountain West to make a home in a lower level league.

Bulls Club had been the only external affairs department that didn't have turnover in the past few years (ticket sales, marketing, media relations and IMG Sponsorship sales are the other departments). Sad to see them lose 3 in a short period of time (Anwar left not too long ago also).

Anyone who ever met Kemel will know that he had an awesome positive attitude. The sort of person who couldn't possibly have anyone not like him. He was a perfect fit for the job he had and will be hard to replace.

Lots of great things got done under Vicki's watch. When we talk about giving credit for all the facilities being built, often not enough credit goes to the Bulls Club.

My former job required a partnership with the Bulls Club, and I think it was a mutually beneficial relationship. I always enjoyed and appreciated how well I was able to work with everyone in the Bulls Club (current and past staff included). While I hope to be able to say it in person to Vicki and Kemel soon, I'll say it here too, I hope they both have great things in their future, and as a fan and former co-worker I certainly appreciate what they did for USF.

Fanbase? What fanbase? Skip destroyed the fanbase a long time ago with this dumpster fire. It will be interesting to look back years from now and compare the Skip Holtz era to the Robert McCullum era and see who did more damage to the program they coached.

Hold on. That is completely unfair. Coach McCullum didn't take over a winning program with a stocked cupboard. He took over a program that needed a house cleaning. He also left a nice gift for Coach Heath, he signed Dominique Jones. Jones was a McCullum recruit who was in the program when Stan got here. (and I am not trying to diminish the great job Stan has done with our program, I am fully behind him) ..... but I will not say that Coach McCullum was bad for USF. You have to remember, until the very recent times (Muma Center, new Sun Dome) USF was a very tough place for a basketball coach to win (men or women).

I am not saying that a change wasn't needed (the one that brought in Coach Heath) .... but Coach McCullum wasn't a program destroyer, he did a lot of good things here that will never be appreciated properly.

I was and still am 100% behind the field goal. I clapped when he sent the field goal unit out there, and I tweeted it in the moment, if anyone doubts me (@mike1625) .... the game was clearly lost and the thought that Bonani not be on the field for one play on senior day was unfair to the kid. If we didn't kick that field goal, and didn't convert (I think it was about a 4th and 4) he wouldn't have played. He is our all time leading scorer, and a leader.

As much as I hated kicking vs. Miami, this one was ok. Sometimes you have to do the right thing, even when it isn't easy .. and that was the right thing.

BJ was a big part of our team, but that does not give a coach a pass. I remember when we lost the all time Big East QB combined yardage leader to a career ending injury (career meaning college career) and we had a pretty big game next on our schedule. Anyone remember how that turned out?

Not meant as an insult to any other coaches, in my opinion he was clearly the best O-Coordinator we have had as a program. Take a look at his resume, position coach in the NFL, coordinator at Arizona, QB coach for Philip Rivers at NC State. Also see that he ran different styles of offense here to match our talent and skills. He was coordinator when we were a pro style offense with Chad Barnhardt, and a totally different offense with the spread we ran with Grothe/Daniels.

One thing that we as fans always forget to account for, coaches spend 20 hours a week at practice. As fans we often call for plays or players that don't have the skills or knowledge to do something, and coaches will often know that. We had a qb in the past (not one anyone will think of, who I won't name) that I would hear fans ***** that we always ran the same plays over and over. What the fans didn't realize is that the qb just wasn't able learn many plays and to avoid stupid mistakes we had to run the same few plays ... and because of talent he was our best option at that moment, even without a full playbook.

Now on a personal note, if I had a son who played football, I would want him to play for Mike Canales. His character is all quality. He lost his job here through no fault of his, a new head coach is never going to keep the former coach's coordinators (unless he came from that staff too).

Edited to note that the profanity filter took out the name one might call a female dog and replaced with stars.