The Price of Integrity

[fullofbull@work]

McPherson was inquiring about coming here not too long ago after his "problems" at free shoes U. I was one of the people who was happy to see CJL turn him down. I still hope/think we did the right thing, I hope. Does the present situation change your mind about that decision?

[Guest wildrover]

absolutely not, we need to be realistic though, its not like we don't have our players with their problems but I still think what were going through right now is still connected to growing pains.  We took a bigger step back after the MB years than what we had originally anticipated but we will be fine.  Our recruiting has been awesome the last couple of years and with the sudden pelothora of QB's (that we have to wait a year to see) I think we will start to see the program again start to move forward.  Right now its frustrating becuse were not as good as we were and losing games because of stupid reasons.  But I think when our talent has another year or two underneath them and get the right QB I think we'll again be talking like we were a couple years ago.

[MikeG]

When it comes to comparing the the program now with what it was like in 2002-- you have to remember that was the culmination of a lot of years of growth. We also weren't playing the same level of teams for the most part that year. Many of the teams we beat weren't exactly tearing up the football world (some were). Since then, we have had to deal with true conference play which in it's own right is a different animal. This (and last) year is a struggle where lots of young guns are trying to get up to speed in a hurry. So while some may see us as regressing somewhat (based more or less on output and records)-- I can see us improving in certain aspects-- like depth for one. I've never been around a program that has moved along as fast as we have in terms of conference affiliation, division level changes, building facilities and other services-- you name it. It would be great to revisit the 9-2 days of 2002. But I wonder if that is a bit unrealistic in the short run. I doubt it can be done this year (7-4 would be a great year for this team). And in 2005, we will see perhaps another bump in the level of play in the Big East. So it may take several years for us to blossom. It could be shorter but I will not consider us as failing until we show true signs of a program in trouble. That simply isn't the case.

This may not be directly related to what you were saying wildrover-- just some thoughts about what we can expect out of our team for the next couple of years. We have plenty of hard work ahead of us before we get to that level.

[GarySJ]

This is just another case where the guy you don't know is always better than the guy you know. The fish that got away that gets bigger and bigger over the years.

FOB's post just assumes that adding this player would have been the answer to all our offensive problems. We cannot assume that. What if McPherson had resurfaced at USF, but -- gasp gasp -- was merely an average quarterback? Or had an injury-plagued time of it?

I can't imagine the apoplexy that would have broken out at this board if McPherson's USF performance was anything less than Heismanesque, after all the golden-child mythology that developed around him over the years.

And BTW let's not assume that McPherson's not surfacing here was some sort of moral judgment. I'd like to think that USF's decision not to sign McPherson was borne of noble motives, but we can't assume that either. USF may not have wanted to sign him for some pedantic reason like not having a scholarship, or he may simply have not wanted to come here, despite the news reports of Adrian McPherson's Transfer Whim of The Day (see also: Williams, Ricky). No doubt there are plenty of players our coaching staff desperately wanted three years ago, but wouldn't take now, for a variety of reasons.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun to sit around and play what-if. But it's a little tedious to keep reading that Adrian McPherson, Louis Gachette, Evan Kraky, Cornelius Ingram, or whoever would have been an instant answer to our offensive problems.

[The Sheriff]

AD would have been the best QB to step on the hollowed practice field at USF. The kid is electric... he would have been one bad ass Bulls QB! I still wish we would have gotten him!

[bulls96go]

always a good decision