Scrimmage & Notes from the Trib

[E.T.]

BIG DAY: Today marks the Bulls' first fall scrimmage and USF coach Jim Leavitt said the No. 1 thing he's looking for is "effort."

Other than linebacker, where the Bulls return Stephen Nicholas, Pat St. Louis and Ben Moffitt, every starting position is undecided, Leavitt said. Not surprisingly, Nicholas, St. Louis and Moffitt will by held out of most of today's scrimmage.

ODDS AND ENDS: OT Danny Tolley is still slowed by a pelvis injury. "It's a concern," Leavitt said. "Nobody wants to play more than Danny Tolley. We just want to make sure he's completely healthy before we put him back in there." … LS Darryl Dudding competed in his first practice Thursday and "looked good," Leavitt said. … Walk-on DB Fred Marshall, of Largo, has left the team.

[bulls96go]

QB play

i hope grothe beats out PJ.

IF that happens then we know this will be a great year!

[Joe]

QB play

i hope grothe beats out PJ.

IF that happens then we know this will be a great year!

96,

I'm being serious. But what in your football knowledge makes you think a Redshirt Freshman QB will lead this team to a stunning season? I think Grothe has the potential to be a very very good QB, however, history shows there haven't been many QBs in this country who as a Freshman or Redshirt Freshman led a team to a spectacular season. Usually the ones that do so are blue chippers (Grossman) or Option QBs (Vick and White).

It's pretty apparent to me the best option to win NOW is PJ, I think his expirience is something that people often neglect. The college game is twice as fast as the HS game and while Grothe took a year to Redshirt he still has not seen live game action.

Just my opinion. If Grothe beats PJ for the job then fine, but as of now Grothe hasn't done so and I believe Leavitt will go with expirience over a redshirt Freshman.

[JoeB]

The last Freshman QB to bring his team the championship was in 1985 for Oklahoma.  Remember Jamele Holieway??  Option QB in the right scheme.  Joe's right.  It doesn't happen very often, although Vick came close.  By the way, Vick as a Frosh was a freak of nature.  

[Joe]

Vick was a Redshirt Frosh and they ran the option and QB keepers a lot. He only averaged around 18 passes a game in 1999. It was one of the 1st uses of a "spread option" to help Vick start in the shotgun on many of his runs.

[JoeB]

Yep, he was a Redshirt Frosh that year.  

[MikeG]

Bare in mind that Marquel Blackwell factors into the mindset of Bulls fans. Add to that the old Tampa standby-- "the fans favorite QB is the 2nd stringer".

The way I see this season panning out goes something like this: PJ will start the first three games but Grothe and maybe even Gregory) will get significant playing time in those games. How those live action games turn out could determine the rest of the year, along with injury. What we need at this point is experience-- something PJ is chock full of however good or bad some perceive it. And we need Grothe to see as much action as possible these first two games in case PJ gets hurt.

The ideal situation would be for PJ to perform very well and shake the stigma of previous years. He's capable of it-- sometimes a QB snaps into his element that last year. And we will ned a passing game this year in some shape or form since we can't rely too much on the running attack as we did with Andre Hall.

Whatever happens, we need several capable QBs. Grothe throws a nice ball-- I just hope he can handle the speed of the college game. That part seems to be the touoghest part to handle.

[Jebbull]

I agree 100% with Mike G in that PJ will start but hopefully MG and GG will get plenty of game reps to see how they will handle the speed of a game.  I am very interested in seeing how they respond. Sometimes the best practice players aren't the best gamers.  I recall last year that CJL pulled PJ and replaced him with C-Hill to ignite the offence.  So it is possible that a younger player with less experience will get some PT.  What year was Denson when he started last year against Penn State?  Finally, with the emergence of Plancher and Ponton, maybe we can go to a two-back set and run the ball more and take addtional pressure off the QB.  

[The Sheriff]

How about we give them each ten plays against McNeese State. They each run the same ten plays with the first offense. Regardless of the situation, the same ten plays get run. We'll find out who is the most efficient and that is our starter.

[JoeB]

Thats at every college.  The favorite player at every college is the backup QB, until he becomes the starter.  We need depth at every position.  Once we have this we'll be a dangerous team on both sides of the ball.