A New Direction

[Triple B]

My point was that it seems some fans priority is how much money their program brings in.

Love to see some kind of evidence of that here, or with any other fanbase ....

[WoolyBully]

Yes we did...and it was new; it was the tacit understanding that this was 'the ground floor', that we were recruiting guys who are going to play at the IA level. 

That was the sales pitch. Now, had that been the the standard for the program...and looking at decades of this level of football, I think the program would 

have spiraled. Here's a good link on attendance for USF over the years...and the jumps to IA, CUSA, BE  seem to roughly align with increased attendance. 

 

You know, everyone has their preference. Look at Slippery Rock and Appalachian State...they're not moving on up. There where they've been for years

and don't have designs on anything bigger (and the environment has a lot to do with that). But for this program to succeed...IAA/FCS was not the answer.

 

And UNCC, just now starting to play this fall, jumps to CUSA in the second year of play. 

http://www.tampabayfootball.net/dabucsdb/usfatn.htm

[Bull94]

My point was that it seems some fans priority is how much money their program brings in.

Love to see some kind of evidence of that here, or with any other fanbase ....

go to national boards and see how many threads are started on how much their program is worth or how many threads on tv dollars for each league. or what bowls payout. etc etc

 

hell we have plenty on here.  I've argued with people that i'd rather stay in a c-usa/BE where we can compete rather than move to big 12 where we would never have a chance but there would be plenty more money.

 

people actually want to go to a conference that is nowhere near our region and where 2 teams virtually dominate. we would be like iowa state, oklahoma state, baylor, kansas, texas tech, missouri. we wouldn't sniff a conference title for 30 or 40 years but we would have bags of money and almost everyone one here begs for that to happen. west virginia made a huge mistake. they will be mediocre forever now. same with tcu. they both did and could have dominated their leagues for years to come.

[Bull94]

Yes we did...and it was new; it was the tacit understanding that this was 'the ground floor', that we were recruiting guys who are going to play at the IA level. 

That was the sales pitch. Now, had that been the the standard for the program...and looking at decades of this level of football, I think the program would 

have spiraled. Here's a good link on attendance for USF over the years...and the jumps to IA, CUSA, BE  seem to roughly align with increased attendance. 

 

You know, everyone has their preference. Look at Slippery Rock and Appalachian State...they're not moving on up. There where they've been for years

and don't have designs on anything bigger (and the environment has a lot to do with that). But for this program to succeed...IAA/FCS was not the answer.

 

And UNCC, just now starting to play this fall, jumps to CUSA in the second year of play. 

http://www.tampabayfootball.net/dabucsdb/usfatn.htm

you think we would have spiraled if we were playing for d 1-aa championships instead of last place in a watered down big east??

 

obviously with the bolded statement you meant for this program to succeed financially.

 

you can win at a lower level. you can play for championships at a lower level.

 

UT had a successful program(not financially successful but on the field). if they were a large public college they would still be around. problem was they decided to chase d-1 football and the money and they essentially bankrupted themselves.

[WoolyBully]

I think, the clamoring for a new conference, has as much to do with disdain for the BE as it has to do with the new conference. It's like "get me outta here...I don't care which chair I get, as long as it's where the cool kids sit." I too, am somewhat guilty of that feeling, as I consider the BE/CUSA-II - as it seems to be shaking out - as a step backwards. We all want to win...we just want to win at that level...and winning is something we haven't done in two years. And truthfully, we never blistered the BE as we

(perhaps foolishly) believed we would. But now, honestly, we have the opportunity to turn that around. In CUSA-II, we have the opportunity to win a conference championship(s). What if, just what if...it is not in the Bull's destiny to sit at the big people's table? What if our lot in life is to mirror the basketball program...mediocrity (at best, which is what the old "mid major" term was) with the occasional punching above our weight limit? Our rival is UCF...not Miami, not FSU, and not Florida. Is that going to be ok long term?

 

As for the above, yes I think it would have spiraled. Note the drop in attendance from the first year until the BE. We never hit that same number, even in CUSA, as we did for the first fresh-off-the-stove year. There's no market for IAA/FCS football in Tampa. Of course you can win (and lose) and win championships (and not win them), and with no guarantee that USF would have blistered the win column (as our recruiting would reflect our stature),

Elon, Drake and Maine would never fill the stadium. And if there's no fan interest, well...that money's not gonna just wash ashore.

 

Just look at the complaints here when we now have to play IAA 'pre-season' games? I don't think anyone wants season, after season of that. 

[Bull94]

I think, the clamoring for a new conference, has as much to do with disdain for the BE as it has to do with the new conference. It's like "get me outta here...I don't care which chair I get, as long as it's where the cool kids sit." I too, am somewhat guilty of that feeling, as I consider the BE/CUSA-II - as it seems to be shaking out - as a step backwards. We all want to win...we just want to win at that level...and winning is something we haven't done in two years. And truthfully, we never blistered the BE as we

(perhaps foolishly) believed we would. But now, honestly, we have the opportunity to turn that around. In CUSA-II, we have the opportunity to win a conference championship(s). What if, just what if...it is not in the Bull's destiny to sit at the big people's table? What if our lot in life is to mirror the basketball program...mediocrity (at best, which is what the old "mid major" term was) with the occasional punching above our weight limit? Our rival is UCF...not Miami, not FSU, and not Florida. Is that ok?

it's better than o.k. I loved growing up watching USF basketball when we were in metro and sunbelt.  there were some great memories.sure there were ups and downs but at least it felt like we could maybe compete for the conference once in awhile before the season started.

 

I really like what Stan is doing and quite honestly there was a time there where i thought maybe we'd never win a big east game but honestly I never felt like we could ever realistically compete for a league title. that would have gone on for some time too with the level of competition in the big east if the conference had stayed together.

 

it would be the same if we moved to the big 12 for football. if you were honest with yourself, there really wouldn't be a realistic chance of winning that conference probably ever in my lifetime.

[Bull94]

I think, the clamoring for a new conference, has as much to do with disdain for the BE as it has to do with the new conference. It's like "get me outta here...I don't care which chair I get, as long as it's where the cool kids sit." I too, am somewhat guilty of that feeling, as I consider the BE/CUSA-II - as it seems to be shaking out - as a step backwards. We all want to win...we just want to win at that level...and winning is something we haven't done in two years. And truthfully, we never blistered the BE as we

(perhaps foolishly) believed we would. But now, honestly, we have the opportunity to turn that around. In CUSA-II, we have the opportunity to win a conference championship(s). What if, just what if...it is not in the Bull's destiny to sit at the big people's table? What if our lot in life is to mirror the basketball program...mediocrity (at best, which is what the old "mid major" term was) with the occasional punching above our weight limit? Our rival is UCF...not Miami, not FSU, and not Florida. Is that going to be ok long term?

 

As for the above, yes I think it would have spiraled. Note the drop in attendance from the first year until the BE. We never hit that same number, even in CUSA, as we did for the first fresh-off-the-stove year. There's no market for IAA/FCS football in Tampa. Of course you can win (and lose) and win championships (and not win them), and with no guarantee that USF would have blistered the win column (as our recruiting would reflect our stature),

Elon, Drake and Maine would never fill the stadium. And if there's no fan interest, well...that money's not gonna just wash ashore.

 

Just look at the complaints here when we now have to play IAA 'pre-season' games? I don't think anyone wants season, after season of that. 

we complain because now we're at a higher level. our ticket prices are more. our donations are more. our coach and AD get paid more . so we expect more.

 

of course those teams wouldn't fill the stadium. neither do cincy, uconn, etc.

 

for what it's worth i'm glad we were left behind. I think it's better for our program to maybe establish a winning tradition before we worry about getting our heads handed to us by monster programs every week. regardless of how much we bring in. i know we can surprise them once in awhile but week to week we couldn't compete. I still think there will be a chance for the top level teams in the lower conferences to make playoffs if they actually earn it. I just hope one day we do.

[namuh-bull]

Why couldn't we win the Big 12? Texas hasn't done anything the last few years (I would vote them and Mac Brown) as the team that does the least with the most for at least the last few years.

Oklahoma is decent but not what they were.

Kansas State was good but with a new QB and how many more years from Snyder who knows?

West Virginia - same as it ever was.

The rest of the Big 12? Yeah, so what?

We are players and coaching from being as good as anybody in the country. Now we have the coach, and it looks like he can get the players. I am expecting us in the not to distant future to compete with any of top programs we play and to beat most of them.

Go Bulls!

[Bull94]

Why couldn't we win the Big 12? Texas hasn't done anything the last few years (I would vote them and Mac Brown) as the team that does the least with the most for at least the last few years.

Oklahoma is decent but not what they were.

Kansas State was good but with a new QB and how many more years from Snyder who knows?

West Virginia - same as it ever was.

The rest of the Big 12? Yeah, so what?

We are players and coaching from being as good as anybody in the country. Now we have the coach, and it looks like he can get the players. I am expecting us in the not to distant future to compete with any of top programs we play and to beat most of them.

Go Bulls!

so you think we could compete with a program that has an athletics budget of $134M on a regular basis? or a program that has a $75M athletics dorm(I know they put regular students in there too but it was built for athletics)? sorry but we wouldn't.

 

we would be lumped in with baylor, oklahoma state(pretty darn good), kansas, iowa state, etc that have never won a title.

 

I'm as confident as the next guy but we couldn't crack the top 2 in a watered down big east with 2 different coaches.

[WoolyBully]

Same here...in a way, I am glad that we're rebooting with CUSA-II. 

Granted, I'm certainly not enthusiastic about the teams we will be playing, but we have to schedule some winnable fights. Going back over seventeen years,

we've won a few marquee games and we've been waxed as well. We never won our conference, regardless of what conference we were in, so this is a 

chance to right that. As for winning the Big Twelve...I think maybe winning something like three...maybe four...BE/CUSA-II conference games would be a good start.

Any team with losses to Ball State and Temple, probably wants to do something on the field first. We should probably revisit this conversation after the season,

given that Coach Willie "sayin' the right things" Taggart has yet to win a game for the U of SF.