Coaching Shakeup Needed

[BullsBucs79]

Not just saying this after last night's debacle, but the Cincy game just continued to show what is painfully obvious. A lot of these losses (and near losses to crappy teams) can be attributed to discipline (which is due to bad coaching). Not saying that Leavitt needs to go (yet), but definitely Rod Smith and some others. Here is why USF is a poorly coached team:

1. As ESPN pointed out last night, USF is almost dead last in the nation in penalties. Most of the penalties we get are personal fouls or stupid mistakes. Again, it comes down to discipline, which is due to poor coaching.

2. We received a punt at the 2 yard line!??? Really? I have never played a down in a college football game and I even know that anything past the 10 yard line, you let go. (See note on discipline above).

3. Great play calling....A Fake punt on your own 30 yard line, down 9 points with 14:00 to go? AND it is 4th and 9???? Possibly the worst call in the history of football. Nothing good could have happened on that call.

4. Predictable (and poor) play calling every game. Either sitting in the stands at RJS or watching on TV like last night, myself and everyone around me seem to be able to predict what play is going to be run next. Rod Smith is trying to get Grothe killed. How many times are we going to run the QB during a designed play? That might work against FIU or McNeese St, but wait until WVU, PITT and Louisville and we won't have Grothe for 4 full years. Also, why is it that EVERY TIME on third down and 7 or 8 (or more), the play that is always called is a short pass up the middle or to the flat for 5 yards? Even John Madden knows that you have to catch the ball at or past the first down marker.

5. Not using the best players: Ricky Ponton served his suspension, so why is Leavitt trying to continue to prove a point by a) not starting him and not playing him?? He had a great opening drive once he got in on the second play....where was he the rest of the game? 9 rushes for 38 yards? Most of those yards were on the first drive.

The bottom line is that Rod Smith has got to go NOW and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for Leavitt to go as well. Yes, he has been a great coach to start this program and there is no disputing that what he has done with this program in the short years it has been around is nothing short of amazing, but it might be time to get someone new in here. It might be a situation like the Bucs had with Dungy....GREAT guy, great coach, who laid a solid foundation, but just time for someone else to come in and take the team to the next level.

Pretty embarrassing showing in front of the 2,000 fans in attendance last night and the millions (after the third quarter, 10) fans that were watching around the nation on ESPN.

[South_Florida_Flip]

1. As ESPN pointed out last night, USF is almost dead last in the nation in penalties. Most of the penalties we get are personal fouls or stupid mistakes. Again, it comes down to discipline, which is due to poor coaching.

2. We received a punt at the 2 yard line!??? Really? I have never played a down in a college football game and I even know that anything past the 10 yard line, you let go. (See note on discipline above).

3. Great play calling....A Fake punt on your own 30 yard line, down 9 points with 14:00 to go? AND it is 4th and 9???? Possibly the worst call in the history of football. Nothing good could have happened on that call.

4. Predictable (and poor) play calling every game. Either sitting in the stands at RJS or watching on TV like last night, myself and everyone around me seem to be able to predict what play is going to be run next. Rod Smith is trying to get Grothe killed. How many times are we going to run the QB during a designed play? That might work against FIU or McNeese St, but wait until WVU, PITT and Louisville and we won't have Grothe for 4 full years. Also, why is it that EVERY TIME on third down and 7 or 8 (or more), the play that is always called is a short pass up the middle or to the flat for 5 yards? Even John Madden knows that you have to catch the ball at or past the first down marker.

5. Not using the best players: Ricky Ponton served his suspension, so why is Leavitt trying to continue to prove a point by a) not starting him and not playing him?? He had a great opening drive once he got in on the second play....where was he the rest of the game? 9 rushes for 38 yards? Most of those yards were on the first drive.

1) We had 35 yards in penalties last night to Cincy's 55, so you can't really put all the blame on that, although that first one killed our opening drive when we were moving down the field.

2) Agreed. Bad mistake to say the least.

3) It was 4th and 4. I'm probably in the minority here, but I like the call and still do. If Mompremier does his job and actually looked to block the guy he was supposed to, then Teachey is upfield and we get the first down. We stagnated after that first second half drive, so we needed to do something.

4) I think Grothe didn't run as much. It seemed liked we tried the option too much when the runs between the tackles were more successful. Ricky should have been in there more. We also could have passed a bit more early on to keep Cincy on their heels. They seemed to think we were going to run as much as they were.

5) Agree again. Ben had some nice runs, but Ricky is the guy we need in there.

[bullMD2005]

I'm not sure about the Leavitt component, but most of the post voiced exactly what I was feeling.  I thought last night was ridiculous from start to end.

[Guest]

Not just saying this after last night's debacle, but the Cincy game just continued to show what is painfully obvious. A lot of these losses (and near losses to crappy teams) can be attributed to discipline (which is due to bad coaching). Not saying that Leavitt needs to go (yet), but definitely Rod Smith and some others. Here is why USF is a poorly coached team:

1. As ESPN pointed out last night, USF is almost dead last in the nation in penalties. Most of the penalties we get are personal fouls or stupid mistakes. Again, it comes down to discipline, which is due to poor coaching.

2. We received a punt at the 2 yard line!??? Really? I have never played a down in a college football game and I even know that anything past the 10 yard line, you let go. (See note on discipline above).

3. Great play calling....A Fake punt on your own 30 yard line, down 9 points with 14:00 to go? AND it is 4th and 9???? Possibly the worst call in the history of football. Nothing good could have happened on that call.

4. Predictable (and poor) play calling every game. Either sitting in the stands at RJS or watching on TV like last night, myself and everyone around me seem to be able to predict what play is going to be run next. Rod Smith is trying to get Grothe killed. How many times are we going to run the QB during a designed play? That might work against FIU or McNeese St, but wait until WVU, PITT and Louisville and we won't have Grothe for 4 full years. Also, why is it that EVERY TIME on third down and 7 or 8 (or more), the play that is always called is a short pass up the middle or to the flat for 5 yards? Even John Madden knows that you have to catch the ball at or past the first down marker.

5. Not using the best players: Ricky Ponton served his suspension, so why is Leavitt trying to continue to prove a point by a) not starting him and not playing him?? He had a great opening drive once he got in on the second play....where was he the rest of the game? 9 rushes for 38 yards? Most of those yards were on the first drive.

The bottom line is that Rod Smith has got to go NOW and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for Leavitt to go as well. Yes, he has been a great coach to start this program and there is no disputing that what he has done with this program in the short years it has been around is nothing short of amazing, but it might be time to get someone new in here. It might be a situation like the Bucs had with Dungy....GREAT guy, great coach, who laid a solid foundation, but just time for someone else to come in and take the team to the next level.

Pretty embarrassing showing in front of the 2,000 fans in attendance last night and the millions (after the third quarter, 10) fans that were watching around the nation on ESPN.

1. Penalties didn't hurt last night - except for the holding penalty on our 3rd drive.  Killed our momentum there.

2. Randolph pressed -- he was trying to make a big play to make a spark.  It was a mistake - but not a killer.  That drive we moved the ball a little before punting.  The safety came because he didn't catch a punt and Cincy downed the ball at the two.

3. I agree with Flip that it was a good call.  Caught them off guard, but our blockers missed two blocks.  I would have snapped it to an up back rather than the punter, because Teachey has that much further to run to get to the line of scrimmage.

4. I agree with the predictability of our play calling.  The problem is that Cincy has a GREAT run defense and could sit back and dare Grothe to throw.  Cincy might have the best overall defense in the Big East - at least as good as USF (obviously).

5. Ponton was the ONLY RB to touch the ball in the 4th quarter and most of the 3rd.  Our QBs ran the ball more than the RBs.  When you have a top 20 rush defense, considering who they have played, you know they are good.  Handing off to Ponton might not have helped that much more.

[ProfessaBull]

Fair analysis, just don't think CJL should be thrown under the bus...yet.

[Jewbull]

I agree CJL should not be thrown under the bus, and by no means is he on the hot seat even if we only win one more game this yr, which is very possible. HOWEVER, when head coach's have been on the hot seat in the past few yrs IE: Larry Coker (obviously that did not work) and Phillip Fulmer to name a few, all have cleaned house on their assistants and brought in new guys. For Phillip it worked, for Larry, well we all know what is going on with them.

[windbane]

1. Penalties didn't hurt last night - except for the holding penalty on our 3rd drive.  Killed our momentum there.

2. Randolph pressed -- he was trying to make a big play to make a spark.  It was a mistake - but not a killer.  That drive we moved the ball a little before punting.  The safety came because he didn't catch a punt and Cincy downed the ball at the two.

3. I agree with Flip that it was a good call.  Caught them off guard, but our blockers missed two blocks.  I would have snapped it to an up back rather than the punter, because Teachey has that much further to run to get to the line of scrimmage.

4. I agree with the predictability of our play calling.  The problem is that Cincy has a GREAT run defense and could sit back and dare Grothe to throw.  Cincy might have the best overall defense in the Big East - at least as good as USF (obviously).

5. Ponton was the ONLY RB to touch the ball in the 4th quarter and most of the 3rd.  Our QBs ran the ball more than the RBs.  When you have a top 20 rush defense, considering who they have played, you know they are good.  Handing off to Ponton might not have helped that much more.

I agree with 1 through 3 here.  Good analysis.

4.  I agree that we run a lot of the same plays a lot, but that swing pass is often successful with randolph being our best playmaker.  Their run D was great but we still were able to move it early against them.  When we tried to mix in the pass we found out Grothe was having a terrible game and by the time we realized passing was terrible we were behind and had to keep trying to pass.

5.  I agree again (thats 5 for 5).  I like the mix of B Will being in there to keep both guys fresh, but when we were behind in the 2nd half we had to try to pass more.  Perhaps ponton should be in more important plays so people dont complain, but B Will made some nice plays (including almost preventing that safety on terrible blocking that play).  Ponton did average 4.2 a carry, and it's just sad that we seemed to have success running early but it kept seeming like we werent passing enough (would barely not get 1st down), so we try to pass and then do worse for the majority of the game.

[BullAdrian]

Did you know all of Cinn's scores came from USF's miscues?

1. 2pts from safety

2. 7 pts from Johnson's fumble

3. 7pts from turnover from fake punt

4. 7pts from 4th down turnover

If I were USF coach as USF's ball on 1 yard line, lets hard count until play clock to ZERO to see if we take 5 yards offside advantage. I don't care if we get delay of game penatly. We will not lose a yard.

IMO, Grothe did not get used with his grip on ball in cold. I have noticed he threw ball much higher above receiver's head often.  Also Cinn's DL kept going front his face where Grothe had to pass flat out route.

What happened to other punter who have good leg and bad catching ball? Would you give him other chance? It seems our future opponent have learned and will setup few players in back to catch the line-drive punt.  30 yard punted and 10 yards returned.  It kills me!

We can win all rest of the season if we play free mistake!!

[BigShoop]

On the playcalling, I think it was less the playcalling and more the ENTIRE GAMEPLAN.

Cincy is 20th in the NATION vs the run, playing a pretty **** tough schedule. So what do we decide to do? 12 of the first 18 plays we ran were runs.....with our backup RB who doesnt have NEAR the vision and ability to break tackles that Ponton has.

The last posession of the 1st half we passed 5 times and ran once. Problem was, when we DID pass, it was predictable AND we didnt make an adjustment to stop the blitz.

And the WORST part about it is that we were down 2-0........TWO - TO - NOTHING........and never ONCE did I feel we were in the game.

[BullBlood]

5. Ponton was the ONLY RB to touch the ball in the 4th quarter and most of the 3rd.  Our QBs ran the ball more than the RBs.  When you have a top 20 rush defense, considering who they have played, you know they are good.  Handing off to Ponton might not have helped that much more.

He should be getting all of the first and second quarter carries.  He is miles ahead of williams in the talent department.

You guys forget to mention that we had a chance to take the lead by kicking the field goal when we were down around the 20.  That would have put us up 3-2.  Instead we threw a pick and got nothing out of it.