What happened to Mike Ford??? | We need to demand to know why....

[Carolina_Bull]

You can't run when your are behind and the opponents DL is manhandling your OL.

[lmiusf]

our highest recruit to date (Mike Ford) is not getting in the games. As season ticket holders, alumni, and USF fans, we have contributed millions into this program and should be kept in the know as to why we have such a highly regaurded backfield but yet fail to have a running game. This loss should be placed right on the coaches shoulders. Gregory never even attemped to get a running game going. I'm not going to bash our defense like others are doing because I believe Oregon's defense scored as many points as their offense off of our forced passes. Guess what Gregory, when your opponent KNOWS you're going to throw the ball on every down it makes it pretty easy to cover and obviously pick off. Mike or Jamar for that matter would likely be starters at that other university they were recruited to play at (not even going to type that schools name) so why are the coaches not giving them the shot here. It surely isn't because Ben beats them out of the starting spot, is it? If it's an attitude problem with Ford then who can really blame him? The kid is a beast and sits the bench. If we aren't going to play him then let him go and that way we can quit asking where he is....lol Also, where has are trickery gone? We used it in the last 3 games of the regular season and seemed to fair pretty well in those. I think that Samuels' end around would have been a nice wrinkle in today's game. When I look at other major programs, I see the same backfield starting game in and game out so why are we still on the back by commited garbage? IT DOESN"T WORK Gregory!!!!!!

As far as the defense went today, I would've made one change. Mike and Trae would've been pulled out after the first quarter. Neither of them even tried to lay a lick on someone or break on a ball for an INT, but then can you really blame them? They're about to be signing multi million dollar contracts as long as they survive this last game. I would've put Murphy and Roberts in there starting with the second quarter. Let them get some playing time. Other than that, Oregon's OL just man handled our smaller DL.

[Rocky Style]

As you probably know I am pretty pissed about the lack of use of Ford in all of their losses this year and this game looked exactly like those games.  Seriously though I was thinking about this...

Yes, their D was all in our backfield right after the snaps.  No one is going to run away from three guys hitting them the moment they touch the ball...  They must have thought go with a good blocker (Williams) and try to keep the heat off Grothe.  I guess?  There were still yards to be made but they don't seem to take what they can get and end up in 2nd and long 3rd and long.  I think without Ford back there they become way too predictable.  Yeah they do the obligatory 1 yard gain to Williams every now and then to prove that he isn't there to just block but come on.

Im seriously beginning to think Leavitt has a personal problem with Ford.  Like he thinks he's too cocky or something. I have no idea though

I would think a cocky football player is a good thing when it comes to running people over though.

[TRUTH D. Antagonist]

we're back to the Rutgers-game playbook.

our 3 running plays are obvious and predictable.

whe're the I?  where's the two TE sets?  that shotgun RB handoff option is the most garbage play in our playbook and we run it AT LEAST once a series, if not twice.

[smazza]

Did he get hurt?? Why didnt we use Ford more???

this questions always gets asked when he disappears

dont we have 4 other rbs?

no one stepped up

[smazza]

fools?

a fool is  doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results

what happened yesterday happens to most of our big games

games like this define your program hwther blind fans want to admit it

[usfgrad84]

I don't think it was simply a matter of Ford disappearing.  I think it was more a matter of the entire offense's weaknesses being completely exposed from personnel to coaching and play calling. 

Not only were we unable to run the ball, we had problems passing too.  When they were blitizing, we failed to make the right play calls to exploit the aggressivesness.  When they blitz, someone should be open.  How many short slants did we throw?  One screen all day?

One question.  Ford has been most effective running to the right all year long.  Why did he run all his plays to the left or straight up the middle?  Not one to the right.

i think Gregory came out with the right game plan.  Mitchell beat the DBs long a few times.  if Grothe doesn't underthrow a couple of those early they respect the deep ball more and aren't so tough up front.  Where I was disappointed was the lack of making any adjustments.  On the other side of the field, Oregon's coaches made the proper changes to their offense to help out a young QB.

Oregon was abale to do a lot of things because they had more than one difference maker on their team.  When Dixon went out, they still had Stewart and a good offensive line.  They physically kicked our butts. 

[Donno]

fools?

a fool is  doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results

what happened yesterday happens to most of our big games

games like this define your program hwther blind fans want to admit it

I can see our tombstone now... "It can all be summed up by one thing, the 2007 Sun Bowl."

[On_the_Chip]

game plan?

did we use the dline aggresion aganist them with short passes? screens?

that is a coaching issue

i agree with you here.  they never adjusted to oregons D.  i think they tried a couple of times.........ben williams took the hit of the game on one of the short dump off passes.........but they never stuck with it.  it's almost like they had no answers.......coaching issue indeed.

[NormalBull]

Ford carried the ball 6 times for 8 yards.  It was VERY obvious that our running game was not working.  In case you missed the entire earlier part of the season, when we pass, Ben is a TEN TIMES better pass blocker than Ford, and most of the time we go with an empty backfield.

Walker did not play and our OL was completely over matched.  I guess as a season ticket holder what you wanted to see was us punting on 4th and 7 all day long?  How about Matt passing on 3rd and 9 every time we had the ball?

Look, I realize it was painful to watch our Bulls get pounded, but please try to analyze and think objectively about our team.  This was not a game where Ford would have helped us.  But go ahead and demand away.

Normal