USF #6 in AP Poll!!!

[BullGrad95]

"forcing" turnovers is a bit of a myth. The arbiter of a defense's ability is how many yards it gives up. Turnovers are essentially gifts.

you can honestly say that Moffit's first interception was a gift?  Buie outmuscled his blocker and "forced" his hand to grab on to White to "force" his throw to be altered.  That was as "forced" a turnover as you can get.  A gift is when a running back drops the ball with nobody within five yards of him, or a receiver breaks the wrong way and the DB is the only person around to catch the ball.  We earned the turnovers on Friday night.

[Jamie]

Jarrett Brown coming in might have made WVU harder to stop. Consider:

1. Brown is bigger, stronger, and probably harder to tackle than Pat White.

2. He's at least as accurate a thrower as White.

3. Brown is right-handed, meaning USF had to try and flip some of their run and zone read coverages around at halftime because White is a lefty. You try doing that when you've prepared for something diffferent all week.

So with all that, WVU was still held to more than 100 yards less than their average and a whopping 34 points less than their average... so yeah, I'd call that dominant defense.

[Feld44]

Friday night was unreal for me! To see that stadium packed for the first time for a Bulls game, it got a little emotional for me! Playing there, I was hoping for something like that but to finally see it was remarkable! Then to win in the convincing manner we did was even better. I don't think I can find a moment where I was more proud to be a Bull! Now I'm in the majority, thinking we would probably land around 12 or so, then Saturday came and went, and I thought 10 isn't so rediculous! But then to see that we were 6th I was on cloud 9! Talking with some of my former teammates, there is so much pride that we are sharing for this team! We all knew what was going on in Tampa well before this year, and now the nation is finding out in a big way! No matter what happens this year, whether we win out (which is very possible) or we drop a game, we need to make sure that we keep the same excitement going throughout the whole Bay area! I know the diehards won't lose any fire, but for the new fans jumping on the bandwagon, stay on! It will only help the teams, school, and the Tampa Bay area! This IS BULLS COUNTRY!!!!!

[Rocky Style]

They control their own destiny now.  Have to stay focused and keep winning.

[Ruger7mmmag]

"forcing" turnovers is a bit of a myth. The arbiter of a defense's ability is how many yards it gives up. Turnovers are essentially gifts.

Your first post regarding us being #6 I can understand.  When a buddy called me to tell me, I really thought he was joking as that's one WILD jump from #18 to #6.  I was thinking 12 Friday night, then thinking about 9/10 Saturday as some of those losses were a matter of FGs and those teams if they miss those FGs, would've definitely lost as the favorites were storming near the end.

However, your second comment I quoted above is insane.  Dominant defenses put so much pressure on offenses, that they do make mistakes.  Defenses come in two varieties, turnover minded or yardage minded.  The Tampa 2 which we play is a turnover minded defense predicated on getting a big rush with only 4 guys most of the time and hoping to force a bad throw for the pick.  What it does do is give up yards bc there are big holes in the defense that can be exploited if a offense gets time and takes what it gives you.

This defense is forcing 4+ turnovers a game.  That's no accident.  It's a result of SPEED which leads to more helmets on ball carriers which create a bunch more opportunities for the perfect hit to force it lose, or get to a spot to make the pick or deflect one up to get picked by someone else.

It's how Miami and FSU won most of their titles.  They created turnovers to create short fields and they had decent offenses which could capitalize on it. 

Right now, I think we may be overrhyped as we definitely have the defense of a #6 team, but our offense isn't close to firing on all cylinders.  If we play generally mistake free on defense, our offense doesn't have to do much (especially with the D contributing 6 points ever game); but if we have a bad day on defense, we don't have the offense to compensate right now.

That's why a team like Louisville still scares the crap out of me as well as UCF who are putting up points bc if we get down early, our offense hasn't shown it can carry this team on its back.  If anything, the offense is holding this team back and wearing down our defense.

If we want to run the table, we need the offense to sustain a number of long drives every game or build some leads for our starters on D to get some rest so they aren't out there any longer than they need be.  We need to blow teams like FAU out at half so Selvie isn't in there in the 3rd quarter risking some freak injury.  Stuff like that.

I do have faith the  offense can do it bc the talent is there and it's YOUNG, very YOUNG.  When it finally "clicks", this team is going to be SCARY and every bit worthy of that ranking.

For now though, I'm still worried about EVERY game on our schedule and that's why I think 6 might be overhyped.  Bc when you are usually #6, you usually only circle 2-3 games on your schedule as POSSIBLE losses though you still expect to win.  Right now, there's PLENTY on our schedule who could jump up and beat us.

WIth that being sad, I'm enjoying the hell out of this right now and it's never been a better time to be a Bull's fan!  Shoot, someone mentioned the BUCS up above and I can even one up that one as I'm a Cubs fan as well!  Bulls, Bucs and Cubs all doing well?  Someone PINCH ME NOW!

[gobulls83]

I don't find the No. 10 ranking objectionable either.

But I would like to hear him explain ranking the Gators ahead of us. Besides the Auburn factor, UF looked HORRIBLE against Ole Miss last week.

I just asked him... you can to:

http://blogs.tampabay.com/seminoles/2007/09/new-poll-1.html

I asked him on there as well. I can't *believe* he puts Boston College ahead of UF and not us. How can you really say they've been more impressive than us? I hope he actually responds.

I'm thinking he's not going to respond. I sent him an e-mail asking him to do so.

[smazza]

this is fantastic but i think being top ranked state of florida team is more impressive