USF football success vs. talent on the team

[Flowers4Heisman]

We didn't do well in the Big East in men's basketball because we didn't have enough talent. That was our #1 problem.

 

But when it comes to football, do you think talent has been what's held us back in the last five years (the last two years of Leavitt and all of Skip's tenure)?

 

For example, when we were ranked #2, I thought for sure we were going to clean up and just explode. Nope!

 

Parts of me says that we never got enough talent to overcome the depth and talent we needed at the key positions.

But the other part of me blames coaching. For example, I always felt that Rutgers outcoached Leavitt. But then Leavitt schooled ucf, and their coach is a decent Xs & Os guy.

 

Anyway, poor coaching or not enough talent at USF (no Big East titles under Leavitt, and Skip's destructions of the program)?

 

This leads to this current issue: can our current coach do both better (recruit and coach) than the last two coaches?

[Hem]

Please go through our roster and see where these kids had other options to play at. Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, USC, Texas Tech, Miami, FSU, etc.

We have TOO MUCH TALENT on this team to NOT be good. All we need is the Coach who can put that talent to work. Skip could not.

[charsibb]

Both Leavitt and Skippy were outcoached by our conference mates. That tells me they were too predictable when it counted. They were, however, able to sneak up on a few unsuspecting bunny rabbits.

 

We had talent, but not enough to overcome the coaching.

 

Jury's still out on CWT's ability to coach at the level necessary, but his ability to recruit seems top-notch so far

[usfbullrider]

Over the past 8 years, there have been some freaking awesome head coaches in the BE, as evidenced by their promotions to big programs and success there.  The Bulls have been outmatched coaching wise since day one IMO.

[Skingraft]

Over the past 8 years, there have been some freaking awesome head coaches in the BE, as evidenced by their promotions to big programs and success there.  The Bulls have been outmatched coaching wise since day one IMO.

I agree with this...  we had great fire, but missed the mark on the strategy...

[usfgrad84]

In my opinion it has been lack depth and experience, so I guess it is a matter of having enough talent. That has all been a function of being a young program that constantly moved up in competition.

That was definitely the case under Leavitt. We always seemed to be a couple of players away. In 2006 we we were still playing with guys recruited during the 1AA years. When Ricky Ponton was suspended that year, the total career number of carries by our RB squad was a whopping zero.

Even in 2007 we were young. I remember being at the UCONN game and at one point we had 9 Freshman on the field on offense at one time.

I believe the depth and talent got better by the time Skip arrived, but was still lacking. Hence the problem fielding a recieving corp and then the problem at DB. I also felt Skip didn't know what to do with some of the talent he had (BJ, Lamar, TREX, etc), but that is another story.

[usfgrad84]

Please go through our roster and see where these kids had other options to play at. Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, USC, Texas Tech, Miami, FSU, etc.

We have TOO MUCH TALENT on this team to NOT be good. All we need is the Coach who can put that talent to work. Skip could not.

We had talent on the first teams, just not enough across the board and as backups.

I also don't think Skip knew what to do with what he had. Combination of problems.

[WoolyBully]

I think it's more of a coaching issue than 'raw talent', when it comes to USF. While there may have been some depth issues, coaching - especially at the college level - makes or breaks the program. A good example was the Sun Bowl. In talking with one of the Oregon players at the airport, the surprise at how predictable our play calling was. We did not prepare a 'bowl' game plan, we just executed the same plays as Oregon saw on film. I agree with the assessment that we were just good enough to bag some one off upsets, but not good enough on a regular basis against the better coaches in the conference. It could just be that the last two years of Leavitt's tenure we saw that he was pegging his coaching meter. 

[usfgrad84]

In the Sun Bowl, some issues were certainly to blame, but go back and look at that Oregon team. They were a legitimate contender for the National Championship game until Dixon blew his knee out. They were basically doing to every other team what they did to us until he got hurt. He was on the running, I think even the favorite at that point, to win the Heisman.

They also had one of the best RBs in the country, Jonathon Stewart, behind a huge and talented OL. He had almost 270 all purpose yards against us.

Coaching preparation was an issue, but they had way more talent than we did. They were a legit national championship contender. We were still an up and coming team.

[Gismo]

I think we've had enough talent for a truly great coach to be able to win a conference title or two.