Leavitt/Holtz/Taggart

[Flowers4Heisman]

I'm curious to know what you bulls think the differences were that brought the results that we got -and what do you think we will need to exceed all prior levels of achievement?

I'll give it a go:

Leavitt: Great defense. Players played with emotions but the bad thing was that when they played scared (something to lose) or weren't playing against good teams, they laid an egg.

Leavitt could never put together the offense that we needed for the victories would have put USF on the map -championships.

To this end, I think he couldn't recruit enough talent on the offensive side. We never got the linemen we needed, and our receivers were never as good. We had enough QB talent at times, but so much was missing elsewhere.

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Holtz: He got fired because he missed the cornerstone of USF's success: defense. When you are that soft, you are asking for trouble. Frankly, offensively, it was nothing that I hadn't seen before under Leavitt. Sure, it got pretty ugly when B.J. was not in there. Otherwise, it was the same horse and pony show that I had seen for years. I mean he did beat Notre Dame at Notre Dame, so he's not that bad of a coach. In the end, with the timeouts and whatnot, he was on a sinking ship and his mind wasn't right. I don't look at those moments as the defining moments of his coaching ability. Anyway, it doesn't matter now. He's not our problem --that dang $500K a year is, though.

To be certain, he failed to recruit also. He didn't run out of time; he ran out of players.

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Coach Taggart:

I think he's going to be fine offensively, along with recruiting. At least in my estimation, he will be much better than the last two coaches.

Defensively, if he doesn't focus on this (meaning hiring the right DC and implementing the right scheme), it could be trouble. I need to see how Stanford and WKU did with their defenses. I did remember seeing a lot of scoring from WKU opponents.

The bottom line is that we have a chance to be better than what's been achieved at USF, but the coming days will reveal more, when the new DC is hired.

[Sanford Bull]

Leavitt: good recruiter, defense was aggressive (which got us in trouble and teams like Rutgers and UConn used it against us, running screens against uiur blitzes).

Holtz: poor recruiter, defense was bend but don't break (which got exposed as soft... opposite of Leavitt defense)

Hoping Coach T defense is a balance of the two. One thing I'm looking forward to is prostyle offense. Want the stout defense again

[usfgrad84]

In my opinion you aren't comparing apples to oranges when comparing Leavitt's tenure to Skip's. Leavitt had a true passion for the program, but really only had a few years to begin to recruit true BCS caliber players. I always felt that it was because of the constant upgrading in level of competition we faced that we were just a couple of players away. With Leavitt's teams (especially 2007 and 2008) I really felt it was a depth problem just because we hadn't really gone through a complete recruiting cycle of being able to recruit the best players yet. I don't care what anyone says, the best players want to play for a team that has a real chance at a National Championship. AS a non BCS team ( like we were prior to BE), we didn't really have access to the highest level of recruit and we really just started to land a few of them. I remember watching the UCONN game in 2008 from the stands and the offense had 8 freshman lined up in the 2nd half. I truly believe that Leavitt got the players to play above their talent level. I don't believe that Leavitt was a good game day coach, but I think he learned and started to grow into it. One example is the voodoo five game. Everyone remembers the voodoo five play, but if he was smart, all Leavitt had to do was a kick a FG from XP range instead of go for the TD. Our D held UCONN to, I think negative yards, the entire second half of that game. I believe we ended up getting back into FG range with time left. Leavitt made dumb decisions, but started to get better.

When I look back on Skip's time here I just believe, for whatever reason, Skip was in over his head at this level. Go back to his first year and the way the team ran the offense. He had no idea what he had in BJ and he was afraid to use him properly. He kept the reins on him. Period. It was pretty evident that Skip wasn't ready to be a good game day decision maker by his consistently poor time management. The problem with Skip is that he kept making the same exact mistakes over and over. Skip ended up a little thin at WR his first couple of years because of injuries and this past year at QB and DB. I just believe Skip did more damage himself because of game management than anything else.

One comment I just read from Taggart that makes a lot of sense and that I had not thought of before, seems like he really gets it. He believes you have to hit the ground running and win now. It makes a lot of sense to me because the kids only get 4 years. It isn't the NFL where you can really build for the future. The team better start winning in year 2 and keep improving into year 3. I don't think in college, unless you are one of the top 8 to 10 legacy programs, you can wait 3 or 4 years until "your kids" are upperclassman to start the turnaround process and I think that's what was happening with Skip.

Just my two cents worth.

[Dhambuc]

Players played like their coaches,

Leavitt was fired up, showed passion, always thought we should win and could beat anyone. He put players in position to win and let them go get it.

Skip was lost, No passion, looked like he had no clue alot of times, full of excuses( "best 8 lost team in the country") Tried to be thier friend first, not the coach. Was in over his head, To loyal to his Buddies(Coaching Staff and Senior players who were not performing, wouldnt make the adjustments)

Willie : Has me Bullieving and on the Bus, Hope he keeps the fire and passion. If So we should be a Leavitt team at Worse, (I expect first year to be bumpy due to loss of so many Seniors, QB ect. in addition to the Schedule this year @ Michigan St, Miami, RU, Ville, Cincy, UCF, UConn) Skip left the cup board bare, But I think Coach T will have them prepared and ready to play each week. I see us competing for BE Titles within his 2nd season.

[Who'sYourData?]

With Leavitt we did not have depth because Leavitt constantly signed high risk/high reward players. When they panned out, it was great. But too many of them did not work out which left us with no depth. In Holtz first year, we had one scholarship QB behind BJ Daniels and that was a raw freshman. One. Can you imagine any other DI program having only two scholarship QBs on the roster? We were constantly in that situation at one position or another throughout the Leavitt years. That is the same way he coached. We'd start off well because he would burn out the team, then through injury and exhaustion the team would collapse down the stretch.

Under Holtz, we had the opposite. It looks like he hit upon a high percentage of his recruits, but not as many stars. A little early to tell, but the depth has been building. Again, he coached the same way. Solid, but not spectacular. Given Florida and Georgia recruits, I think you need to use the speed to put pressure on the other team and Holtz did not do that enough. Just like recruiting, he played not to lose instead of playing to win.

The ideal coach is a mixture of the two. You want most recruits to be productive, and some of them to be stars. You want the team to have passion, but be disciplined and patient. You want the team to make big plays, and be steady enough not to give them up. Neither of our first two coaches gave the program what it needed in the Big East. I'm hoping Taggart is that ideal coach. Doesn't gamble stupidly, but is creative and passionate.

[mviusa]

I don't recall Leavitt or Holtz sending one of these to me!

[Triple B]

I don't recall Leavitt or Holtz sending one of these to me!

Why would they send you a card from Willie Taggart?

[Dhambuc]

Got mine last night as well, Nice gesture from Coach T and USF.

[Who'sYourData?]

I don't recall Leavitt or Holtz sending one of these to me!

Why would they send you a card from Willie Taggart?

Bazinga!

[Skingraft]

I don't recall Leavitt or Holtz sending one of these to me!

Why would they send you a card from Willie Taggart?

OK... That was funny