Why USF Football will never get over the hump...

[Matt]

We had a very small window and we missed it.  Now we aren't even the best non-power 5 team in our state.

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/report--aac-lost-45-percent-of-its-football-revenue-with-cfp-change-174539154.html

 

Unless USF looks at football as an investment and really shells a lot of money into the program without it being there from donors/ticket sales then we will continue to be an average mid-major program that makes a bowl game that no one cares about every few years.  

[jasonb56]

That is sobering... 

[Triple B]

We had a very small window and we missed it.  Now we aren't even the best non-power 5 team in our state.

When/what was this "window" and how did we "miss" it?

[raptorcj]

We had a great year, and a few exciting/promising ones, but in the end we've always been mediocre in our conference. For that, I'm not sure we really ever had an opportunity for better. Even the "great" year, we bombed like a boss in the BCS bowl game, so there's that, too.

 

lol the discussion about how much the AAC lost with the move to CFP. Two years in existence, with the first being an AQ, doesn't make for a great statistical analysis.

[WoolyBully]

 

We had a very small window and we missed it.  Now we aren't even the best non-power 5 team in our state.

When/what was this "window" and how did we "miss" it?

 

I'm guessing this is a thinly veiled reference to our inclusion in the Big East. We DID have a seat at the table...we just didn't leverage that position into anything other than mediocrity.  Now, we find ourselves on the wrong side of the velvet rope. 

 

But the question becomes: so what if USF never ever gets into the rarified air of P5land? S'pose that DMZ between the P5 & G5 is reinforced and we are relegated to conference championships against Houston, UCF, and Tulsa for the next two decades? How does that impact the program? Do we find ourselves in a 'go big or go home' situation where there is just not that much non-alum interest in supporting the program? What if it is our fate to indeed be the tallest midget? Is that fatal? 

 

The basketball team has lost more games than it ever won, but we still show up in small numbers and hope - Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown - that we make it past the first round of the conference tournament.

 

S'pose this is as tall as we're ever gonna get...what then? What's the contingency for never having to shop at the big and tall section? 

[Brad]

"It's over man, Wormer dropped the big one"

[Johaan]

We had a great year, and a few exciting/promising ones, but in the end we've always been mediocre in our conference. For that, I'm not sure we really ever had an opportunity for better. Even the "great" year, we bombed like a boss in the BCS bowl game, so there's that, too.

 

lol the discussion about how much the AAC lost with the move to CFP. Two years in existence, with the first being an AQ, doesn't make for a great statistical analysis.

 

I don't know, from a business point of view, this is the most damning evidence I've seen with proving just how much we lost with the AAC. These are not statistics, these are balance sheet numbers. Two years or not, one with CFP, a loss in 45% revenue is huge, especially if you lay this on top of what the other conferences gained. I'd not want to present that line chart to the university presidents. 

 

Now I don't agree that this reflects entirely on us and that the future is written in stone... but it sure does not help. 

[Brad]

#slowburn

[JTrue]

We should demand entrance into the ACC. It's the only solution to this problem.

[Brad]

Enter red herrings.