Please enlighten me: When did USF get the reputation...

[mikebeau]

...for being a program filled with criminals?

I've only been on board since 2005, so maybe I missed something.

Every opponent fan board I go to, and even some of the press I read, taunts USF as being a program "full of criminals"

I know about Grothe's bartending episode, Mike Ford not paying that speeding ticket (or whatever), the parking boot ordeal, and I vaguely remember some marijuana charges from a couple of years ago.

Does this make us a criminal program, or am I missing something?

Seems to me this is no where on the level of other programs (USC, Bama, FSU, et al) which had INSTITUTIONALIZED criminal problems

Can someone shed some light?

I almost get the impression that people's chain of thought is USF>>>Miami>>>Criminals

They are all dislexic.  It is FSU they are not talking about.

[USFFan]

I don't know if you guys are intentionally speaking tongue-in-cheek, but we've had way more than that.  I think it stems largely from the whole Brian Fisher incident where he kept getting arrested for driving with a suspended license (suspended because he hadn't paid child support).  Every time he would get arrested, even long after he stopped playing for us, Brett McMurphy would be sure to discuss how many times USF players had been arrested.  Then, whenever another incident would happen (Lee Roy Selmon Jr. being arrested for assault, several marijuana possession charges, etc.), Brett would dredge up every incident again.  It's been all berries and cream with Brett lately, but there was a time when he seemed hell bent on dragging USF through the mud.  Now it seems it's a big case of if you can't beat them, join them...

USFFan

[lotsofbull99]

Everyone sees us as possibly the next Miami, so they pin all of Miami's sins onto us.  Now all we need is 2LiveCrew to back the program, and we will have made street credit with the true thugs.  Thug Life!

[Bobcat99]

A lot of it has to do with the university in general, too. Let's face it, it's not in the best neighborhood, and with serial rapists abound, shootings on campus, etc, it stands out quite differently from a school in a small college town.

Then again, Florida is in Gainesville which isn't exactly big and they have crazy shootings there all the time.

And Michigan is in Ann Arbor which is some kind of crime-free utopia. *shrug*

[Griggsy]

I don't know if you guys are intentionally speaking tongue-in-cheek, but we've had way more than that.  I think it stems largely from the whole Brian Fisher incident where he kept getting arrested for driving with a suspended license (suspended because he hadn't paid child support).  Every time he would get arrested, even long after he stopped playing for us, Brett McMurphy would be sure to discuss how many times USF players had been arrested.  Then, whenever another incident would happen (Lee Roy Selmon Jr. being arrested for assault, several marijuana possession charges, etc.), Brett would dredge up every incident again.  It's been all berries and cream with Brett lately, but there was a time when he seemed hell bent on dragging USF through the mud.  Now it seems it's a big case of if you can't beat them, join them...

USFFan

Bad behavior from players is not something unique to USF. I'd venture to say these things are not that bad, compared to other programs out there where people are getting shot, stealing cars, etc. Not to mention the institutionalized criminal behavior of accepting kickbacks from local businesses, boosters, etc.

Most of our team is made up of downright good-hearted guys, and it ****** me off for them to be getting this reputation when they've done nothing to deserve it.

To the average American outside of Tampa right now, USF is a program of criminals with sub-par academics who couldn't get into a "real" football school.

[kingkoon]

What are they trying to imply? That those who attend USF are Tampa trash...Heres what i say to that :stfu

[Henry Jones Jr.]

There are several 'explanations'. One is the year of the non-qualifer. Fisher wasnt a great example of our boys, neither was Johnny Peyton and his mystery bag. We had 3 players suspended last season for failed drug tests. Honestly all schools have these problems, and all schools have kids like these, its the nature of the game, ours just were back-to-back, and right aroudn the time where we pissed off ecu/ucf/smu so they had ammo to attack us.

[crambone]

Thug Life!

tug lyfe

[Orlando Bull]

The problem isn't our kids, or our coaches, or even our University. The problem is our city. Follow me. It's not that Tampa is a bad place. But, if something happens in Gainesville, everyone in the media is such a homer that they sugar-coat it. In Tampa we don't have that loyalty with our papers.

Also, there isn't any getting away with anything in Tampa too many vultures around to catch it.

All programs have the same or worse issues, their media has just been writing about them for so long that they have too much of an attachment to them to print what really happens.

You actually read what happens in Tampa. In traditional college towns, you don't get all of the facts. Such as, "he stole the car only after he had called and told them he was coming"

Unforutnately, I think this will always be an issue for us, we aren't going to get away from our own media (nor do we want to).

[BullDoug]

U of TX has had 8 maybe 9 players charged with felony charges since May.