michibull

Like others before me have said, this season does not predict the future; BUT, this season by Coach Mohl is a perfect example of why patience can payoff. I bring this up because I believe Coach Gregory is a similar situation. Good beginning rough middle and if given a little more time could be successful (he does have a good resume). We don’t and won’t have deep talented rosters like the power teams. We need to have patience and maintain competitiveness and every couple years our teams will nail it. I’m very proud of this team and you could see little improvements every week, it was a lot of fun and as far as I’m concerned, if Coach Mohl can win a CC every 4-6 years, we would be lucky to keep him here for the long run.

Agreed. I wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of variation of what’s happening in European soccer, occurs in college sports. I feel that the purity of sports is going the way of banking.

This is probably the sad truth of it. Our only way around that is if we were able to get a program together that kids want to play for. There are programs like Gonzaga, VCU, St Mary’s that work, but it takes commitment and time to develop; which I don’t think our athletics department is capable of.

Yeah, EMU has about the worst athletics department in the MAC. This has to be a relationship situation, without a doubt. I really hope he does well there. EMU is about 30 minutes from me so I’ll have to catch a game with the kids.

I can’t help but think that if we hadn’t fired CJL and kept winning 8-9 games a year, built an OCS while we were hot and upgraded our other facilities like we did, we could have been a part of the B12 expansion when they took WVU. We had a good rivalry budding with them, would have been perfect. It makes me sad, haha.

Yes, they actually show up. Don’t forget, Detroit is one of the poorest (yet they still go to games) and lower populated cities and the vast majority of people who go to games come from the suburbs, where we have snowboarding/skiing, ice skating, snowmobile trails/drag racing, ice fishing, in addition to all of the indoor sports facilities. Please don’t confuse Michigan for Detroit, completely different outside of the city.

And they still sell 63k tix a game, haha. Again, I was a Bucs fan growing up, which watching Mark Carrier, Reggie Cobb and Horace Copeland wasn’t much more fun

Yeah, I didn’t include them because they have been one of the top teams for the better part of a decade and it’s easy to support a winner. True fandom comes from supporting your team even when things are less than ideal.

The daily stampede had an article about the attendance woes in 2017, I think it said the last game was in front of 16,000 people and we were ranked. I believe I’m 2018 we average 38,000 tix sold per game and that was a little off set by the 57,000 that showed up for the UCF game. We also know that the upper bowl was rarely used and there was a lot of red seats in the crowd.

The Lions have 1 playoff win since 1957, they have playoff banners, not championships; They still average 63k with the exception of the 0-16 era. Fans still show up. I would never compare Mich and MSU to USF, but my whole point is that MAC schools still have loyal following being in a lesser conference Which is a lame excuse. I grew up an MSU fan in an MSU family. I applied there and didn’t get in, you know who accepted me? South Florida baby and I am proud of that!! You know how much MSU stuff is in my house? 0. Me and my family want MSU to do well, but we spend our time watching USF in every sport we can. Is that ticket sales or actual people, because we all know we don’t average 30k people in the stadium like they announce. With USF’s size, resources and growing alumni, we should not compare ourselves to FAU, Coastal Carolina or Western Kentucky, that would be an insult. We are better (all around, not talking strictly sports because we all know the situation) than any G5 schools out there and our students and alumni should reflect that. USF should be a point of pride for the Tampa Bay Area. Don’t take my criticisms as insults, I actually grew up a Bucs fan more than Lions, truth be told I was obsessed with Florida teams, which is why I applied to USF. I love Tampa, it’s my favorite city and the people are great. Sports are just looked at different up here.

Completely agree. I think for the most part, in general, Tampa Bay fans are terrible, I mean some of the worst (look at the Rays support or the Bucs pre-Brady). I found it appalling the sheer amount of FSU, UF and UM gear on campus when I went to school, and that was in the early/mid 2000’s when we were relevant. Growing up in Michigan, it takes a whole lot of losing from any team before attendance and interest suffers ( I mean the Lions still sell out). Western Michigan and Central Michigan have better regular crowds and student sections than USF and they are jokes of programs compared to us (by today’s standards, not the BE days). It was a real culture shock for me coming down and seeing the difference. I mean look at QF’s era of football and still NOBODY showed up and that was a good 2 1/2 years of FUN football; it was embarrassing when people would ask why nobody shows up. I don’t want to hear the excuse of good weather because we have everything anyone would want in terms of distractions (all weather sports and activities), but we still make it a point to show up. I have come to the realization that we missed the boat with the last expansion and we will be stuck as a mid major for the rest of my life. The city doesn’t support us, Alumni don’t support us, students don’t support us and the school won’t do whatever it takes to change that; and because of this, no P5 school will ever consider us for expansion. The BE should have forced the B12’s hand and taken Kansas and co, but they were passive and were were destroyed. Just like how UCF got overly aggressive and passed us (and believe me, I HATE that it happened like that) while we sat on our hands staying the course. I’m not saying we should break rules and do all types of shady things like UCF did, but we need to dump money and resources and get aggressive with our sports if we want to change our course, but idk if our athletics department has it in them; which is why nobody cares about us.

I still stand by the fact it only takes 1 star player and 2 solid players to be highly competitive in basketball; whereas football is much more in depth. In addition, the sheer amount of investment that goes into football compared to basketball is huge. Return on investment is complicated, but obviously football has a higher ceiling. I would think being a perennial NCAAT participant would net us just as much, if not more publicity than being a good AAC football team (with much less investment). If we were apart of a major football conference, we would have a different conversation; but nobody cares about the AAC and nobody will ever care about it because we don’t bring in the money the big boys do, it’s just the reality of our situation.

The thought process is that if you have a defense that will give up 40 points a game, you have under developed WR’s, a group of suspect RB’s and an O-line that could use another year of seasoning, you may want to protect your future. Your young QB could be injured trying to do too much or left exposed. If another year of development for the rest of the team equates to a more stable foundation for your young QB, you are only helping the health and development of him. If we were a QB away from winning the conference, OK then, but anyone who watch any game this season knows that’s not the case with this team.

I think if Cade is the most polished QB by the start of fall, we need to commit to him as the starter for the year (unless there is a span of 3-4 games of disaster, then let someone other than McClain eat up snaps) The 2 QB system never works out and to burn a RS year for McClain would be foolish on a team that wouldn’t win with or without him (this year anyways). I think it is a great opportunity to have a really young, athletic and high potential kid like McClain and for him to be able to grow and learn behind Cade for a year is actually ideal when looking at the next 3-4 years down the road. As others have said, we have parts of the roster that need built up before a legitimate conference run can be made, so let’s be patient and methodical with the build.

Yes, at least that is what I read this morning.

This statement is what’s wrong with our society today. You can’t just fire somebody for an allegation. If Gregory didn’t do anything wrong and had no knowledge of it, he should not be fired; but this takes a reasonable investigation. As for Herrion there is also a due process involved. Depending on what was said, how it was said and the intent of the comment, it would require different consequences or actions.

I think it’s the Adidas jerseys; I mean, really, who wants to play in those.

Great points, I wasn’t aware of those things; I appreciate the knowledge drop. You have won me over on that we should not have gotten rid of him when we did. I’ll soften on my stance him being so over rated, but can’t commit to him being a really good coach, haha. I do like Gregory a lot, and I personally want him here for another 2-3 years. I think there’s potential here.

Yes, the NCAAT is the goal, but clearly that wasn’t even a springboard for Heath, because he followed it up with two 12 win seasons. My only point is that I really appreciate what Heath did for us, it’s my favorite USF sports memory, but I’m not about to give the guy a life time contract. Following up an NCAAT appearance with two 12 win seasons is unacceptable.

I agree that a CBI is not a title that carries any weight, but it so shows good progress, especially from where our program was when he took over; that’s all. Does he need to do more, absolutely. I just think it is not fair to ignore the progress that was made, and having to deal with losing your all conference player on the eve of the season start and a pandemic. I want to see what he can do in the next 2 or 3 years before I’d cut him loose.

That’s not indicative of Heath’s coaching ability or the job he could do. Gregory took over a team that had like 3 players returning and a program that was caught in NCAA violations. After two years won a post season championship and the next 2 years had to deal with an injured star player and a pandemic. Heath had one of USF’s best players and then a miracle NCAA tourney appearance and went back to winning 12 games. Don’t see the attachment to Heath, yet looking down at Gregory.

You guys are crazy!! If he was that good, why is he coaching in the G league? If he was that good, he’d be coaching in a real league on a real program. Heath has got to be the most over rated coach in USF history. Believe me, that short tourney run is THE highlight of USF sports for me (even better than 2007 football) I’ll never forget it, BUT face the facts, out of 7 seasons, 5 had 12 wins or less, really digest that. Our tourney run came when the Big East was in a down year and we had the weakest schedule, I mean we lost to Ohio University for crying out loud. He had the most boring playing style (we ALL complained about it), we would hold the ball till there was 5 secs left on the clock then shoot, why? Because he couldn’t recruit sustainable talent. Outside of Dom and a couple blue chip players, we never had real BASKETBALL players. If we did, we would be able to run the court and not rely on possession ball and defense. Heaths USF teams were hard to watch except for Dom who could ball.

It’s really interesting if you look at the path our 2 schools have taken. USF on one hand, has taken the “conservative/responsible” approach to athletics and the lack of fire and aggressiveness is reflected in our fans apathy and we are falling way behind. UCF on the other sold themselves out at all costs trying to get what they want and you can see their fans have taken on a similar mentality; but they have clearly passed us by (will that last, who knows). I’m terms of school and education quality, USF is head shoulders better and for that I am extremely proud of my Bullsnation, but I wish we could learn from UCF in way that sometimes you need to be more aggressive (within reason) or you risk falling behind. Idk what we need to do to get our students and fans interested (which is perplexing to me since Florida is such a big sports state), but we had better figure it out because as was stated earlier, even in the Flowers era, no one was showing up and it was down right embarrassing. Maybe the snowflakes need to accept the fact that we are in the AAC, and that’s ok, because this is our school, we can pack the house regardless of who we play and we can dominate the conference and get our recognition as we go. The students of this university need understand that they are not at UF, FSU or Miami; they need to get over it and accept that USF is their school. They need to take pride in their school. The city of Tampa has to recognize that USF touches every single dollar in the area and support it. Sorry I’m going on a rant but it really bothers me that there is such a lack of support for USF by its own students, and I just don’t understand it.

Thanks, appreciate it.

What a great series for the Bulls, loved it!! Quick question, what is the red at the end of the Bulls bats? Is it some kind of stat tracker?