This is why I still believe in Skip

[bulls phanatic]

Zook was a good recruiter, just not a very good coach

[usfgrad84]

What if he makes it through the year, what do you look for as Skip turning the corner?

Keep in mind, next year is the rebuilding year. New QB, new RBs, a couple of new OL, 2 new DBs and 2 new LBs and new PK replacing the all time leader.

You're still going to have the same guy managing the game and making personnel decisions at key times.

What is acceptable next year and seen as turning the corner?

What if he misses a bowl for a third year in a row (I am making the assumption, for sake of this conversation, that we miss a bowl this year).

[Bull94]

What if he makes it through the year, what do you look for as Skip turning the corner?

Keep in mind, next year is the rebuilding year. New QB, new RBs, a couple of new OL, 2 new DBs and 2 new LBs and new PK replacing the all time leader.

You're still going to have the same guy managing the game and making personnel decisions at key times.

What is acceptable next year and seen as turning the corner?

What if he misses a bowl for a third year in a row (I am making the assumption, for sake of this conversation, that we miss a bowl this year).

that's my problem. this was the year to show results. next year we are rebuilding and that will be the excuse. what if we bottom out next year? do we let him get us back to 5-7 the following year and call it improvement??

[OnTheBus]

Boy, tonight's Skip Holtz Radio Show (is there one for the bye week?) will be interesting!

[Bull94]

I said in another thread,I think I'd give him a chance if he cleaned house within his staff - at least oust the coordinators

This is what I said in Leavitt's final 2 seasons.

first thing Skip did was sh!tcan the old staff and bring in his own guys-- save a few here and there. Was that totally necessary? I can see pruning but to remove some key figures from that staff seemed negligent.

huge mistake. we don't recruit our own backyard anymore. he finally has some hillsborough kids on this years list but they are from Jesuit and Robinson. not that there is anything wrong with that but I would prefer Plant and Armwood. lakeland. bradenton manatee etc.

[Bull94]

The ****** play sucks, but I believe Skip is 100% correct. We are 2.5 years into the second-coach-ever's era of a 15-year-old football program. I don't think a rah-rah coach who can pull off an upset or two is ideal. I want a coach who wants to patiently construct a well-rounded program for long-term success.

I think he hears our voice. I'm giving him a chance to right the ship. He has made a few tactical errors, sure, but I'm still in.

Two and a half years is a pretty long time these days. E.g., I've lived in Baton Rouge for a while and remember that when Nick Saban came to LSU in 2000, the Tigers were in the toilet, coming off 4-7 and 3-8 seasons, and with all kinds of academic and off-the-field troubles among the football players. In just his second season, LSU rebounded to win the SEC title and the Sugar Bowl. And how long did it take Urban Meyer to clean up the Ron Zook wreckage and have the Gators on top? And to keep it in the family, Lou Holtz took over Notre Dame in 1986 when they were coming off a 5-6 season and a 58-7 loss to Miami and in year two had them in the Cotton Bowl.

It doesn't take long to right a sinking ship, if you know what you are doing. In our case, we have a program that is worse shape in terms of on-the-field performance than when Skip took over. Losing 10 of 11 Big East (not SEC or Big 12, but Big East) games? That is just ridiculous and gives me no hope for the future.

2 1/2 years should give you a very good idea of what you have for a coach. plenty of coaches win with out "their" players. Moosechamp at UF. 2nd year. 5-0 top 10. that was a rebuild.

people say holtz had a good first year but we were actually 7-5. about what I expected but it wasn't above expectations. winning the bowl game made us feel it was better than it was.

[TrujilloBull2013]

The ****** play sucks, but I believe Skip is 100% correct. We are 2.5 years into the second-coach-ever's era of a 15-year-old football program. I don't think a rah-rah coach who can pull off an upset or two is ideal. I want a coach who wants to patiently construct a well-rounded program for long-term success.

I think he hears our voice. I'm giving him a chance to right the ship. He has made a few tactical errors, sure, but I'm still in.

Two and a half years is a pretty long time these days.

his first season wasn't bad. 8-5 with a bowl win over Clemson. cool.

he's really only outright SUCKED for the past 1.5 years.

we need to win 4 of 6 the rest of this season to be bowl eligible. 3 of 6 to stay at the same pace of suckage we were at last season.

it is very possible we go 4-8, 3-9... i'm not quite convinced we lose ALL our games from here out, but i wouldn't be surprised if we only squeezed 2 more games out of this pile of ****, and that would be a regression.

Holtz is far more likely to take us to new lows before he brings us even back up to .500.

next time we see .500 could be 0-0 to start the 2013 season.

[South_Florida_Flip]

Boy, tonight's Skip Holtz Radio Show (is there one for the bye week?) will be interesting!

I don't believe that there is a radio show tonight.

[Who'sYourData?]

So, Skip, just how good are you as a coach?

Holtz pauses, choosing his words carefully.

"If you judge by wins and losses, then I'm not very **** good," he said. "I'm not going to sit and try to argue these numbers. I'm not going to try to sell them and make them look pretty. You can dress up a pig but it's still a pig.

"If you judge by the health of the program, the academics, the character of the kids … give me time and I think I can give you a lot better answer. The guys we brought in are freshmen and redshirt freshmen. I'd at least like to be here long enough to see them shave."

So, Skip, are you the guy to make this program essential?

"I believe I am," he said. "We've won everywhere we've been, and we've built it the right way."

The ****** play sucks, but I believe Skip is 100% correct. We are 2.5 years into the second-coach-ever's era of a 15-year-old football program. I don't think a rah-rah coach who can pull off an upset or two is ideal. I want a coach who wants to patiently construct a well-rounded program for long-term success.

I think he hears our voice. I'm giving him a chance to right the ship. He has made a few tactical errors, sure, but I'm still in.

http://www.tampabay....ootball/1255678

just so we are clear-- the ship was fine when he got here. The then 12 year old program he inherited wasn't a teardown or a rebuild-- it was a solid program in place.

so any "righting of the ship" is to fix damage he has made himself or if not him, damage from a lack of maintaining/improving what was in place.

Seriously? There were two warring factions in the locker room. Our graduation rate was one of the lowest in the country, just barely above the level to avoid sanctions. There was one scholarship QB on the roster.

The program was in chaos. Leavitt thrived on chaos and somehow managed to win games here an there. But to call it a solid program is laughable IMO.

I have my doubts whether Holtz is the right guy. But he is clearly recruiting a different type of athlete than the previous regime. Graduation rates are up, the locker room is not tearing itself apart. Players wives aren't leaking alleged cheating scandals to the local paper.

I think there are changes that Holtz should be making right now that would translate to more wins on the field in the short term. Long term the program is a lot more solid, whether it is Holtz or another coach that will turn the corner on the field.

[Quo Vadis]

there are some items you mention that I disagree with (Zook left with a cupboard full of talent -- something Meyer knew)

the one that I don't understand is how you seem to think that USF's ship was sinking when Holtz arrived

Zook left the cupboard full, but he obviously had no skills in the kitchen while Meyer did. As for USF's situation when Holtz arrived, i did not mean to imply that our ship was sinking. It wasn't, rather under Leavitt we had reached a plateau as a mid- to upper- level Big East team. Even though I thought (and think) Leavitt deserves a statue or at least a street named after him for how he built our program up from nothing, I was happy to see him go because IMO he had taken us as far as his abilities would allow.

But my point was that even when ships are sinking they can be turned around very quickly, so Holtz has even less of an excuse because he inherited a drifting, not sinking, ship.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Esteban879194