Henderson: Bulls must show they can handle success

[Jim Johnson]

Bulls must show they can handle success

By JOE HENDERSON  | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 13, 2009

TAMPA - It was a long summer for University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt. After watching a midseason slide take his Bulls out of Big East contention for a second consecutive year, Leavitt ordered a detailed study of every aspect of his program - from the pace of practice, to conditioning, to meeting schedules, you name it.

Everything.

He didn't like what he saw.

"We changed a lot, a lot," Leavitt said. "I spent a lot of reflection time. It's not that what we were doing before was wrong, but I just wanted to see if we needed to make changes."

We'll get into the details of those changes in a minute, but the question for the 21st-ranked Bulls now is whether all that made a difference. It's hard to say for sure that it has just yet.

Read the rest...

[RSSMOOTH]

Getting to 7-0 I think will be a big measuring point for us, I don't think we've ever gotten to 7-0, every time we've approached it we've lost....

[Guest]

2008: 5-0 ... lost to Pitt

2007: 6-0 ... lost to Rutgers

2006: 3-0 ... lost to Kanasas

2005: lost opener to Penn State

2004: 1-0 ... lost to South Carolina

2003: lost opener to Alabama

2002: 2-0... lost to Arkansas

2001: lost opener to Northern Illinois

2000: 1-0... lost to Kentucky

1999: lost opener to San Diego State

1998: 5-0... lost to Western Kentucky

1997: 1-0... lost to the Citadel

[Griggsy]

Getting to 7-0 I think will be a big measuring point for us, I don't think we've ever gotten to 7-0, every time we've approached it we've lost....

In my mind, the following is the minimum we'd have to achieve for me to consider this year successful:

-10 win season

-#2 or higher in the Big East

-End the year ranked

The other criteria I had was to get at least one win from the FSU and Miami games.