USF football success vs. talent on the team

[usfgrad84]

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

A few players on each side of the ball.  No depth.  We haven't had a good, experienced QB and a good, experienced RB on the field at the same time here ever.  We have not had more than one good, receiver with experience on the field at the same time here in at least 6 years.  Once you get past our top 3 or 4 players I don't see where any of our teams had a good enough amount of depth compared to the other teams that eventually won the divisions. That's not say that head coching problems didn't add to the issue.

[WoolyBully]

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.

Indeed. The Sun Bowl, for Oregon that year, was a huge let down, considering where they COULD HAVE BEEN playing. But that's just one example of being out coached. I look at our perennial mid-conference meltdowns and the games against Rutgers...most close, not blowouts...but just enough to get the "W" as examples of our success being tied much more to coaching than quality of recruit available. 

[BDYZR]

 

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

A few players on each side of the ball.  No depth.  We haven't had a good, experienced QB and a good, experienced RB on the field at the same time here ever.  We have not had more than one good, receiver with experience on the field at the same time here in at least 6 years.  Once you get past our top 3 or 4 players I don't see where any of our teams had a good enough amount of depth compared to the other teams that eventually won the divisions. That's not say that head coching problems didn't add to the issue.

 

I think a little of that may have come from recruiting too many athletes. Yes we needed them, still do, but when you have to teach a position it slows that player down. I think that's where the coaching part comes to play. Also, to be fair, the coaching staff is the coach. If the head coach isn't surrounded by talented staff, he will fail.

I think this staff as a whole will be better than any in the past.

[Dhambuc]

I think Leavitt  did a great job getting his teams ready to play and compete. I think he met or exceeded expectations with the talent level he had esp in the early years.

 

Skip unfort cost us numerous games and was way to conservative with the play calling, game management, time outs ect.. and putting players in the position to succeed.

Skip had talent when he walked in as evident by the way we handled Clemson( in the bowl game) in his first or second season? Clemson has had one of the top rated recruiting classes over the last decade. We made their D Line look like a High School team( and we are talking about players like Da Bowers(first round draft pick type player).  Unfort Skip played not to Lose instead of playing to win and allowed them to make the game closer in the final 2 minutes than it needed to be. He did this often and it cost us several close games and made the saying "we are 4 plays away from being undefeated"  blah blah blah..... 

With that said I expect to see some growing pains this year as a result of Skips recruiting, loss of players to graduation and a new coach / system. Coach T has the recruiting down and is on the right track to bring us back to the Leavitt years or better. Will be a matter of time to see if he can coach at the higher level ( AAC as opposed to  WKU  )  Which I think he will and can.  Im on the Bus!!!!

[usfgrad84]

 

 

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

A few players on each side of the ball.  No depth.  We haven't had a good, experienced QB and a good, experienced RB on the field at the same time here ever.  We have not had more than one good, receiver with experience on the field at the same time here in at least 6 years.  Once you get past our top 3 or 4 players I don't see where any of our teams had a good enough amount of depth compared to the other teams that eventually won the divisions. That's not say that head coching problems didn't add to the issue.

 

I think a little of that may have come from recruiting too many athletes. Yes we needed them, still do, but when you have to teach a position it slows that player down. I think that's where the coaching part comes to play. Also, to be fair, the coaching staff is the coach. If the head coach isn't surrounded by talented staff, he will fail.

I think this staff as a whole will be better than any in the past.

 

You can only do so much with such a small pool of money for the assistants.  I think a lot of people forget where we came from in such a short period of time.  Compare the salaries of the assistants in the first 3 or 4 years in the BE to what we have to work with now.  Again, I am not disagreeing that coaching played a factor, but I also think that a lot of people have too high an opinion of the talent that we had access to the first few years in the league.  

[BullFan98]

In 2007 we had more talent and less money to pay coaches/assistants.

[Flowers4Heisman]

As I recall, the big games the we lost during the Leavitt days, it was the defense that failed.

 

With Holtz, I remember not being able to score and letting people score at will at times.

 

I think we can conclude the following:

 

1) The Big East had talented coaches.

2) Leavitt employed a football scheme that couldn't handle a well-coached team with talent: The Sun Bowl!

3) We were always short on depth. Yes, we had talent but not at every position.

4) Our assistants were not the best; we couldn't afford them.

5) The same system, Leavitt made it work better than Holtz.

 

It wasn't Holtz system, so he failed. He's probably a pretty coach under a different system (I don't know about this part).

 

Leavitt probably maxed out the success with his system (mobile QB, athletes everwhere and playing with intense emotions).

 

Looking back, could we have won more important games? I think so. The defense failed at the worst times during the Leavitt days.

 

As for Holtz, he was doomed from the start.

 

This is why I'm very optimistic about our new staff. It's a new system and we are going after talent, not just athletes. It may not be instant success, but I think this is the only way to go.

[dabull80]

In 2007 we had more talent and less money to pay coaches/assistants.

 

Bingo - our assistant coaches were not even close to the best.  We were trying to compete with guys that paid a LB coach more then we paid our DC.

[CRBULL]

As I recall, the big games the we lost during the Leavitt days, it was the defense that failed.

 

With Holtz, I remember not being able to score and letting people score at will at times.

 

I think we can conclude the following:

 

1) The Big East had talented coaches.

2) Leavitt employed a football scheme that couldn't handle a well-coached team with talent: The Sun Bowl!

3) We were always short on depth. Yes, we had talent but not at every position.

4) Our assistants were not the best; we couldn't afford them.

5) The same system, Leavitt made it work better than Holtz.

 

It wasn't Holtz system, so he failed. He's probably a pretty coach under a different system (I don't know about this part).

 

Leavitt probably maxed out the success with his system (mobile QB, athletes everwhere and playing with intense emotions).

 

Looking back, could we have won more important games? I think so. The defense failed at the worst times during the Leavitt days.

 

As for Holtz, he was doomed from the start.

 

This is why I'm very optimistic about our new staff. It's a new system and we are going after talent, not just athletes. It may not be instant success, but I think this is the only way to go.

 

I'm not so sure about the athletes part. We seem to be recruiting more athletes than ever. I don't think that's a bad thing, we'll just have to see what Taggart does with 'em.

[usfgrad84]

In 2007 we had more talent and less money to pay coaches/assistants.

I disagee. That team had some decent talent and came together and played good enough to win a few big games.

There is no way our teams had more talent and depth than the teams that eventually won our division. The only exceptions were maybe 2009 when Grothe was hurt. We had all the pieces together for a big year. Daniels was too limited in what he could do as a true freshman. Grothe was having a good year and had the team to do big things that year.

No way the 2007 team was more talented than WVU (pat white was a heisman candidate, slayton, Noel Devine, Morty Ivy). If that team doesn't fumble at the goal line vs Pitt they were in Championship game.

No way we had more all around talent in 2008 than Cincy.

If Grothe stays healthy in 2009 I believe we were as talented and had the depth to be as good as Cincy's team that should have been in the national championship game. On paper that was the deepest, most experienced team we had, except at QB. Even if Gregory didn't transfer I believe we could have challenged for the BE championship.