I'm losing faith in this program

[bigworm]

we are still a young program  expectations were put to high 2 years ago........ we'll be fine long term

Leavitt needs more time.  Canales can't put in the whole offense with a Freshman QB.  We are only 13 years old.  One more win to 5 straight bowl games!  That's all a fan can hope for; those that want more are unrealistic.

I wasn't asking for a win. I just wanted a competitive game. I knew we were going to lose before the game started. Sad, I know... Losing a hard fought game say, 31-24 would have been understandable in my book, but to lose 31-0 on national  tv after having 2 WEEKS to prepare is UNACCEPTABLE!

To save a lot of people trouble and embarrassment, I'll inform you that bigworm is playing the game where he goes to multiple threads and makes sarcastic posts like this, I guess to mock others or the program.   I've asked him to stop because not everyone picks up on the schtick.  Going forward beware.  He's just slicing up some sarcastic spam.

To tell you the truth, at first I was doing it to mock others and the program, which is wrong.  After a few posts, I think posting the positive stuff made me feel better than posting a big, incoherrant, negative rant like I really wanted.  There's enough of that already.

[usfgrad84]

Faith in the rest of this season is lost.  Not in the long term of the program.  Changes need to be made to the offensive philosophy.  If that means making a change with Canales than so be it.  People say we can't afford to hire a better OC, but I would say we might not be able to afford not to.  How much less money do we make going to the St. Pete or PapaJohns vs the Meineke or better?  How much less money do we make if we go back to having 40,000 in the stands vs being clos to selling out?  How much do we lose if we aren't on the Thursday and Friday ESPN games?  After our two Thursday night performances this year, do we expect to be on a feature game again next year?  BCS level football is a business.  If ESPN now sees us as a joke that people don't want to watch on TV we won't be there and we won't be generating the revenue derived from it.

It is way too early to look to next year, but what do you see that would point to USF competing in the BE?  Besides  JPP, I don't see any player that would emerge as a star to build around for the future.  Daniels looks like a long term project right now.  The truth is we are going backwards in BE play.  4-3 in 2007 with all losses by less than a TD.  2-5 in 2008 but some close losses.  We may end up 3-4 this year, but we were only competitive so far in the first half of UC in our losses.  We are regressing.

[cmhatter]

we are still a young program  expectations were put to high 2 years ago........ we'll be fine long term

Take a deep breath. It took UFlorida 80 years to win their first conference title.

now look....

Nobody is asking to be like Florida. Most people just want to contend for a cOnference championship.

Bythat logic most of us will be long gone by the time usf competes for titles.

[Brad]

I think most things observed over the last 13 years indicate we are on a much faster track.  Don't worry hatter. you're still young.

[BULLfreak]

Keep faith

[smazza]

"keep the faith"  not until we see a change

faith in what??? the same old stuff

no way

the fans expect and deserve change not the status quo

if there arent big changes in off season fans are really fools

[Brad]

smazza - you're a fan, right?

Why do you deserve anything, including a change of the status quo?

[smazza]

I see three parts to the situation and why some fans go nuts every single time we lose (or in this case, get our asses kicked)

1. we have talent-- but it isn't as good as some think. UF gets top ten classes every season-- EVERY SEASON. We barely cracked the top 25 in recruiting just last season and most of those kids have yet to see the field and won't have any impact for a few year (with the exception of Juco transfer JPP)

2. we lack experience - you cannot simply replace a four year starter like Grothe and not expect some problems. But it isn't just that position-- the offensive line is very green, other key positions are also either undersized or green. We have a handful of seniors who are contributing this season-- which should help us out in the long run (remember the last terrible losing season when we had a Mike Jenkins et al starting? By their senior season, that team was kicking *** (well, most of the time).

3. don't think in terms of 13 years - it's been really about 9 years of 1-A football, even less if you consider the BCS tag. No one said this was going to be a cakewalk but for some reason, people actually expect it to be based on the fallacy of item #1. I fully expect many more bumps in the road, along with some awesome wins that just leave some scratching their heads as to how we were able to do that. I have said this a thousand times-- people need to be more patient when it comes to this program. Jesse Palmer can talk out of his *** all he wants about how we have the talent to win etc-- but honestly, he is just flat out wrong about how this team should be expected to win the Big East. We are not there yet. Bringing in a new coach isn't the answer-- we can't afford that for one, a new regime is no guarantee of instant success, and anyone who might be able to bring that type of success is either too expensive or tied up at some other school. So what do you expect the AD to do--- fire Leavitt and bring in some completely unproven OC/DC from another school? Yeah-- that works EVERY TIME.

Honestly, I cannot understand how someone can say we won games against Auburn etc etc with talent alone, never giving the coaching staff any credit for anything good since that doesn't support their viewpoint of it's all on the coaches. Guess what? It is ALWAYS ON THE COACHES. They recruit the players, coach them, game plan for them, and are ultimately responsible. Is it one or two coaches specifically doing something wrong? I can't say but I still believe that CJL is the man to keep our trust in.

The loss hurts-- but I will not go crazy over how badly we lost. Same difference as a 1 point loss in the W-L column. BullyPulpit told me on the phone this was going to be Pitt all over again, and he was right. I think we have had this doom and gloom discussion for the weeks when we lost to Cincy and Pitt-- so I will just watch the implosion on this board from a distance. Why anyone thought our season was going to be a huge success after we lost Grothe still boggles the mind. The fact is that our team is fairly mediocre-- sometimes entertaining-- and occasionally suprising. But we are far from the most talented anything in the Big East or anywhere for that matter.

this is the mission statement for leavitt supporters

usf should be competing fora  BE title by now

[Brad]

smazza - you're a fan, right?

Why do you deserve anything, including a change of the status quo?

[Orlando Bull]

I don't see the player talent as being the problem with the team.  The problem last night other than turnovers was offense coaching against the blitz.   There were no traps,  no quick slants and no really use of the tight end.   There are always hot reads against the blitz and Canales either did not have hot reads for BJ or BJ did not execute. Either way,  Canales needs to do a better job prepping the offense and BJ needs to learn from this mess.

See, here I disagree. Go back and watch the tapes. A second or 2 before BJ gets sacked, or tucks and runs, there are guys waving their arms at him on those quick slants that you speak of. The plays were there, but the Freshman QB didn't pick them up.