Please Get Rid of Strong

[Brad]

Yes, that record from program inception through BCS in less than 10 years. 

The greatest upset wins USF fans have ever seen... put us on the national map, not the P6.

The Jim Leavitt revisionists are still off the mark.

[michibull]

46 minutes ago, George_Bullnard_Shaw said:

I don't really like Strong.

I hate his game philosophy which seems to be overly conservative and not entertaining. For me football is something I watch for entertainment and being entertained is almost as important as winning.  A boring win makes me feel I've wasted 3 hours of my life I could have used better.

I think he's underachieving with our talent. I especially think that last year he underachieved with our talent. I think he has the fatal flaw of forcing players into a system they don't fit rather than being versatile and flexible enough to change his system to fit the players.

The penalties and slow starts and seeming lack of preparedness are also greatly concerning.

But his record is good and I can't support getting rid of him even though I don't like the product he puts on the field. For now it's overwhelmingly winning. Yes I don't like he hasn't won the important games but he's winning the majority. He should get at least one more year which I expect will be better.

I'm never going to like grinding out close games against bad opponents though and I worry that will hurt support for the team.

He may be at the level a Dell rep told me about a sales rep we complained about "Not good enough to keep, not bad enough to fire." But for now the wins are still coming.

I agree with everything you said. I would also add, as many have said, that for being a defensive coach, our defense plays like they're poorly coached, missed tackles, too many players out of position and a seemingly poor initial game plan. 

[USFBulls727]

2 minutes ago, puc86 said:

Sure I can see the play calling is not as exciting as some would hope for and that some of it is philosophy over athleticism but I don’t think if we traded QBs today that the game wouldn’t have looked markedly different for both teams. Also I think getting in a shootout with Houston and praying to score 60 pts while the defense gets pummeled probably isn’t going to win very often especially with King as their QB, from where I was sitting this looked much more like a defensive loss even if the offense is never sexy.

Applewhite is getting the most out of that offense, and that's all that can be asked of him. 

We probably aren't as far apart on Charlie as you might think. I'm still in wait and see mode. He doesn't seem great, but definitely not bad. Still open-minded. The schedule got tougher starting today. We didn't pass this test, but others are coming soon. Really difficult to guess what the Cincy or Temple games might look like, but it will be interesting to see how we fare against decent teams on the road.

[puc86]

CJL is our longest tenured coach and the only one with a winning record outside of our current coach that this thread is attempting to have fired. CJL won all of those games while constantly moving the team on a upward trajectory never before seen and never again to be replicated in college football. Even though we were always playing in a league higher than the players we recruited we always played above average football and difficulty would set in when the season would drag on and our backups weren’t at the level we amazingly had our starters at. Every great thing that’s ever happened to our team happened because of CJL and most with him at the helm. Any win of note came under him or right after with CSH still riding his momentum. Had CJL got to ride this wave to the bottom he would have ran thru this conference as he would have for the first and only time in his career not been constantly climbing up.

[Thebullsfan]

Jim come back... You can blame it all on Judy

[bullsfan27]

The thing I don’t like about Charlie is he is supposed to be a defensive minded coach but the Defense is not good under him. With this conference our defense should be dominant but they are anything but dominant 

[michibull]

12 minutes ago, puc86 said:

CJL is our longest tenured coach and the only one with a winning record outside of our current coach that this thread is attempting to have fired. CJL won all of those games while constantly moving the team on a upward trajectory never before seen and never again to be replicated in college football. Even though we were always playing in a league higher than the players we recruited we always played above average football and difficulty would set in when the season would drag on and our backups weren’t at the level we amazingly had our starters at. Every great thing that’s ever happened to our team happened because of CJL and most with him at the helm. Any win of note came under him or right after with CSH still riding his momentum. Had CJL got to ride this wave to the bottom he would have ran thru this conference as he would have for the first and only time in his career not been constantly climbing up.

5 years in the BE, 5, not one or two. Let's not forget that UCONN, Cincy and Louisville were brand new from our same league (which means it was half BE and half CUSA). I agree that our growth was all on him and as you said, it will never be replicated. That does not excuse the fact that once we got into real teams and coaches, he was just mediocre. You can drink the Kool-aid all you want, but numbers don't lie. Those are hard nosed facts every Leavitt apologist has to face. You state things like our backups weren't good enough or we were playing one league above our talent: whose fault is that? The coach. Again, he had 5 years in the BE, more than a full recruiting cycle and he was still just average. Until you have REAL facts to dispute his record, I don't want to hear it. I love CJL, I think he got a raw deal, but I can still admit that he was an average BCS/P5 coach. 

Also, if he was such a great coach, why wasn't he ever given another HC gig? Mike Leach is coaching. 

Edited October 28, 2018 by michibull

[puc86]

1 minute ago, michibull said:

5 years in the BE, 5, not one or two. Let's not forget that UCONN, Cincy and Louisville were brand new from our same league (which means it was half BE and half CUSA). I agree that our growth was all on him and as you said, it will never be replicated. That does not excuse the fact that once we got into real teams and coaches, he was just mediocre. You can drink the Kool-aid all you want, but numbers don't lie. Those are hard nosed facts every Leavitt apologist has to face. You state things like our backups weren't good enough or we were playing one league above our talent: whose fault is that? The coach. Again, he had 5 years in the BE, more than a full recruiting cycle and he was still just average. Until you have REAL facts to dispute his record, I don't want to hear it. I love CJL, I think he got a raw deal, but I can still admit that he was an average BCS/P5 coach. 

What coach have we had that was even close to as good?

[michibull]

1 minute ago, puc86 said:

What coach have we had that was even close to as good?

I don't know how that is a criteria for defining a good coach or not. All I was saying is that everybody wants CJL back and I ask why? He was a .500 coach in conference for his entire career. He didn't consistently beat the teams we were supposed too. We would start out fast and fizzle out half way through the season, every single year, nothing changed. From 2004-2009 our defense could not stop the run up the middle and our QB draws were our go to plays. I mean, come on man, let's not let our nostalgia cloud reality. Yes, wins against Auburn, WVU, FSU were all fun, but going .500 in your conference every year will win you nothing of consequence. That's all I'm trying to say. 

[Brad]

6 minutes ago, michibull said:

He didn't consistently beat the teams we were supposed too.

He beat the ones we weren't supposed to.  So much more fun for the fans.

And he did beat the ones he was supposed to - like UCF.

He just didn't go undefeated every year (or close to it) like CWT and CCS have been able to do in AAC.  it was a much stronger conference and the OOC was also strong in his tenure.  It's apples and oranges.