michibull

I personally like CBG, I think we are lucky to have a coach with his background and I think he has done a good job of rebuilding the program to where we are not a laughing stock team that can’t even win while cheating (I’m looking at you Antigua). CBG has at least brought stability to a program that was in turmoil. CBG has a proven track record and I’m ok with giving 1-3 more years. It’s not like there’s a ton of great coaches knocking on the door to take over South Florida basketball. I want to see us win as bad as any of you, but you can’t keep going through coaches every couple years, potential future coaches notice this and it’s a red flag. The inability to shoot FTs and lack of a Dominique Jones type of player is concerning, but an extensive rebuild is a tough process and requires patience. Since Georgia Tech fired CBG, how has that worked out for them? We unfortunately know how being impatient can back fire (CJL anyone?) and I would hate for us to make a mistake again. I agree we need to be mindful of progress, but all it takes is landing a star scorer and 2 good supporting players and we are rolling. In CBGs 4 years, year 1, 10-22 with a bunch of outcasts and leftovers; year 2, 24-14 CBA Champs; year 3, 14-17, missing his star player for the year; year 4, 8-11, COVID. Come on guys, his records alone are just as good as Stan Heath’s, let alone the difficulties he’s had to deal with. I want to see them do better and I believe there is still a lot of potential left here and I still have hope that CBG is our guy.

Just curious, are there other HC’s out there that are proven and would be willing to come here? I’m not familiar with baseball recruiting and coaches, so it’s an honest question. Also, if we were to land a really good up and comer, would they leave in 4 years like football or is it different and there’s a little more stability (maybe a Prado situation)?

Ok, I was hoping it was something like that.

I have to say, this weekend was a blast watching USF play good baseball with my son. This team made a complete change from last weekend. I understand FAMU is not very good, but it was a pleasant change. I just wish the students could see that athletics can be a source of pride for a university without taking away from academics. Our baseball stadium is one of the better ones in the country yet there was nobody there. I get we’re not supposed to be very good this year, but that’s no reason not to go to a game when we play lesser competition. Also, the contract with ESPN+ is a game changer for us out of towners.

Thanks buddy, USF will ALWAYS be my team. I always dreamt of going to school in Florida and USF accepted me and made a dream come true. I agree with the hopeful aspect, I really thought this year would be big for basketball, but I think the the way the year has been with breaks in the action, it hurt. I think CJS can turn it around, USF athletic dept just needs to help him. As for the Bucs, me, my wife and kids; we’ve have been fans since the creamsicle years, so this year was amazing (yeah, the Lions are still breaking my parents hearts, haha). We love the Tampa area and plan on coming back eventually. So here’s to “hope”, without it, we have nothing

Yeah, being born and raised here in metro Detroit, I look at pro sports teams differently; if they don’t entertain me, I don’t watch. I don’t give blind loyalty after seeing the Lions all my life. Strangely enough, I was always a Florida sports team person anyways, (which is why I came to USF for school), but if the teams don’t care, neither do I. In terms of local loyalty, why? They literally don’t care about you, they just care about money in their pockets. Very rarely do you get a Steinbrenner or Mike Illitch that will spend what they have to, to try and win. In terms of college sports, some schools care some don’t, I paid my tuition to USF, worked two jobs and busted tail to earn my degree. I don’t owe USF a thing. Do I want to see them do well? Of course, I’m very proud of USF, BUT, when I see them not taking sports serious, why should I? It’s a give-take relationship and right now USF doesn’t promote its sports, it doesn’t build the facilities it should have, it doesn’t manage their books properly and quite frankly they show zero interest in changing. UCF blew past us because the wanted it more and we have done NOTHING to change that. So as far as I’m concerned, I’ve given 16 years of loyalty to USF and all they have “given” me is 1 NCAA tourney in basketball and disappointment in football, not a good return in investment. So until they DO something to get better, I’ll continue to DO other things in my life. Sorry if I sound a little jaded, but I do love USF, I’m just sick of the USF’s lack of action.

Look guys, instead of investing in an IPF for football; we just need to reinvest that money into basketball players. We can buy 2 or 3 superstar recruits and we can be a perennial elite 8 team and get the same publicity a good P6 football team would get. Problem solved

The comment about 18k fans is key to me. The passion of a college football team starts with the university and students. Until USF does everything they can to support, promote and push Bulls football to its staff, students and city, no tradition can be built. Say what we want about RJS, in the mid 2000’s it was packed. Even with CWT and Quentin Flowers, fans weren’t showing up and that’s a failure on everyone’s part. Any major college football town eats, sleeps and breathes their team, that’s not how Tampa is, but it is USF’s responsibility to do all it can to create that. Once that foundation is laid, it will be a little bit easier to get the good football staff and recruits; which will in turn create fanatics for the team and traditions organically grow from that.

I personally think we need to try and build tradition, especially being a young program with very little. We need to go back to the old helmets, green shirts and white pants (or green) for home games and white shirts and green pants for road games. Save the alternate uniforms for a once a year game. We need to focus on consistency in all things. Ohio State, Alabama, USC, Texas..... they all have their main jerseys and people know them the moment they see them. We used to have that with our helmets back in the day and dark green gear, now we are unidentifiable with anything to do with football. Focus on football, not the uni’s and build tradition and consistency, that’s what will build the brand we want.

Haha, it has been 10 years since CJL, and he is 63 years old. I hope we can finally put this to bed and realize those days are gone.

Thank you for this post, you are spot on with this. It doesn’t matter how much money or glory you have, if your not happy, it’s not worth it. CWT has made a lot of money, had his shot at his dream job and may see that it’s not what it was cracked up to be. He may very well be telling the truth that he wants to be here for the long haul; family, life style and job expectations/work life balance can have a huge effect. In addition, long haul doesn’t mean for life, but it means that you are invested in the job and want to settle in for a sustained period. If CWT were to come back, and IF (which is a big IF) we get back to 9/10/11 wins a year, and he stays for 5-10 years, that would be much better than an up and coming coach doing the same but only staying for 3-5 years. CWT has ties here, he’s done the jumping around thing and may want to settle for a while; I personally would prefer this and trust him over some young coach with no ties, that WILL leave at the first P5 offer.

Manning with Jim Mora as the coach was 32-32, Manning with Dungy is slightly better. So let's not go saying Dungy had no effect on Manning.

What is your point for this statement? I'm not saying your wrong or anything like that, just confused. Are you saying because he didn't win here that we don't know if his system would have been successful or that he couldn't have won without Peyton Manning? Either way I don't think it's conclusive. Belichek was a failure in Cleveland, but when he got Brady look what happened; is it Brady or Belichek, that's a discussion that will go on forever. What we do know is Tampa was one of the worst organizations in football and when Dungy got here, it really turned around. In Indianapolis, the Colts under Mora/Manning were 32-32, I think history speaks for itself when it comes to Dungy/Manning and their success.

I did look it up, that's how I pointed out Dunn, Green, 2 OL and a DL. Brooks and Sapp are what you get when you go 5-11. You want support, every single coach that comes in and year one, there are changes, but we always say the the team is inherited by the previous coach. Dungy was here for 5 years, it was his team and the team he built; he took what Wyche built and Gruden got what Dungy built. Strong got what Taggart built, Taggart got what Holtz built and Holtz got what Leavitt built. If you can't see the logic and reasoning in this, you my friend are incapable of seeing another persons point of view and that is someone that cannot have a rational conversation.

The core was very much intact. For the exception of Dunn, Green, 2 OL and 1 DL, it was essentially the same team....... oh, but it is son. Dungy built the team, was a Bert Emanuel catch (which it was, the rule was changed later) and they were going to the Super Bowl in 99, a decent year in 00 and a struggle in '01 and that was his job. He had built a consistent contender that was capable of winning it all. Gruden came in and year one, won the super bowl over his Raiders, then it was a gradual decline and a revolving door at QB (which Gruden was supposed to be a QB whisperer but no patience and no consistency didn't work out). Dungy on the other hand took his philosophy to Indy and had a tweak in offensive strategy and he built a sustained system and team that lasted many years (yes, Manning had a large part to play). Long story short, a high character, players coach who has a proven system, sometimes just needs a tweak to make a huge improvement, and also shouldn't be abandoned for the sake of change.

You are spot on, Dungy is my all time favorite, and I think he got a raw deal with Tampa. Gruden won with Dungy's team against his own team, then proceeded to destroy the Bucs. I think Peyton Manning running the offense in Indy was a perfect compliment to Dungy. That said, I think Strong and Dungy could be similar people and if we show some patience and see who Strong gets for an OC, we could be pleasantly surprised. My big concern is defense. If Strong is supposed to be a defensive guy, our defense was atrocious. It's hard to find HC's with high character and has a great relationship with his team. Due to this I want to give Strong a solid compliment of years to iron out the kinks and get everything in place. My personal opinion is 5-7 years as long as we are competitive and we see progress. This year actually didn't bother as much as some, but I would like to see the OC and DC changed, but I trust Kelly and Strong and whatever they decide, I'll give them next year to see how it works out before I make any judgements.

I am really liking Kelly, finally some intelligent thought and an actual process. Everyone is so emotional, with no patience to discipline. There is a real process and strategy when building anything. You make adjustments as you go, but whole sale changes year in and year out don't work. I forget what season it was, but Tony Dungy, after a poor year was ask what he was going to change, his response was "nothing". He proceeded to explain that he had a system that works, they just needed to execute better and learn. As we have come to see, Dungy is an all timer. I'm not saying changes shouldn't be made, but you don't do it, just because you had a bad year. Sometime just a tweak here or there and some added experience is all that's needed.

I have always been of this mind frame, I'm just reiterating it because there are a lot of people on here who get caught up in the rankings, especially the preseason rankings.

Per the new rankings, barring an implosion from the SEC, ACC and Big10, UCF will be left out again (which I find hilarious, haha). The way the top 7 are set up, there are fail safes in place to keep the AAC out (even after a possible back to back undefeated seasons). This just supports the fact that all we should worry about is Conference Championships and outside of us getting into a P5 when the next round of expansion happens, a Natty is just not feasible. This year was rough, but next year is on the horizon. Let's wait and see if there are changes made and always support South Florida, Go Bulls!!!!

It's called a rivalry, and no matter how good or bad you are, you want to beat the other team each and every year. When your a lot better than the other, you run up the score and rub it in their faces; when you have a poor year, you want to ruin the others season. It's just the way it is for both fan bases. I don't think them being excited for this game and treating it as a big game is funny at all, that's what makes rivalries fun.

I think most fans agree with you from our perspective, I know I do. That being said, for coaches and players, the IPF is more important. It will be the center of USF Football and where the players will spend most of there time. It's a huge recruiting tool and high talent players help to win games, an OCS is the icing on the cake.

Happy Thanksgiving!! I'm thankful for faith, family and friends. I'm also thanks for our school and our fans. Go Bulls!!

Ummmm, the handling of the E. Plancher case, lack of remorse and honoring of the poor kid or even penny pinching on helping the family out. Also, the multiple NCAA violations, the university misusing state funds for a new building against rules or the massive amounts of debt and overspending on athletic facilities....... yeah, a real example of a model program that has built a winner at all costs. Personally, I'll take our University and it's responsible and ethical way of doing business. We have had mistakes, but they are very minor compare to the swamp of corruption that is UCF.

Have you ever heard of Noetic Science? I don't think the gist of the post was ever to blame the losses on the fans. I took the post as a general, let's stop all of the complaining. We literally have 10x the amount of negative posts opposed to positive. People get sick of the repeated negative takes on everything USF football. I have stopped reading this blog daily because of it. I literally pop in once a week just to see if there is any news. The community here just brings people down, and it's cool if that's what you want, just not my cup of tea. The whole season has been a "beating the dead horse" all year, it's very boring and stagnant now. Would it be nice to have a championship contender, heck yeah, but my life and happiness doesn't depend on it. My life's fulfillment is not impacted by the success of a football team; I merely enjoy watching them and love my school. Sports in general is a source of entertainment and when it's not good entertainment, I tune out, just like this board (the retread negative, whoa is me and whoa is USF football is not fun). To all those who are positive and love USF, Go Bulls!!

Haha, tried to edit, my bad.