USF Signing Day Approaching: What to Expect

It's all anyone has been talking about for the past week. National Letter of Intent Signing Day is coming tomorrow, and USF has put together one of the best classes in its short history, assuming everyone stays on board. If you've been keeping track of recruiting like I have, you know we've pretty much got most of our recruits locked down and ready to sign, so there won't be many surprises. But if you don't worry about recruiting until they step on the field (and even if you do follow it), here's a bit of what to be prepared for after the jump.

Bulls Get Major Commit

In continuance of the best recruiting week of Skip Holtz's short tenure here in Tampa, South Florida pulled in another highly sought after recruit. Plant City High School Wide Reciever/Athlete LaMarlin Wiggins declared his intent to play for his hometown Bulls in 2012 today. The 4-star rated Wiggins chose USF over offers from BCS schools including LSU, Miami, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech,Cincinnati and Louisville.

The addition of Wiggins, and the assumption that he'll be playing Wide Receiver for USF, lends credibility to the assumption that the Bulls' receiving corps will be excellent in the 2012 season. Wiggins adds onto a group of receivers that already includes Sterling Griffin, Terrence Mitchell, Andre Davis, Ruben Gonzalez, Chris Dunkley, and probably Alex Mut.

Top 5 players of 2010: Number 5

Football season is still a long way off, but as we sit and eagerly await the 2011 season to get started, we are taking a look back at the 2010 season and looking at the top players that made it a special season. Mike and I will be bring you our top 5 players from the 2010 season, starting with number 5. See if you agree with our picks and tell us who you think we should have picked!

Matt's #5 - Center Sampson Genus

Sampson Genus, the 6’1” 315-pound senior center makes my list at number 5. It is not often the big guys up front on the offensive line get their due credit, but Genus was one of the best players not only on the team, but in the conference as well.

Genus started all 13 games for the Bulls, playing in 44 games and starting 30 games during his career at USF. Genus was named team captain in 2010 and was named 1st All Big East for his great performance. Genus played well all season. He was the corner stone on the offensive line. Learning a new offense under first year offensive coordinator Todd Fitch and understanding the play calling and blocking schemes was difficult, but Genus learned quickly and became a contributor in both pass blocking and great holes for the running backs.

Genus wasn’t drafted by the NFL, but many believe (as well as I do) that he will find his way onto an NFL roster at some point because of his ability.

With Genus gone, the Bulls will be looking for a replacement, not the easiest task. Keith McCaskill will get the job and should do a fine job at center, but it will not be easy to replace an all conference performer like Genus.

Mike's #5 - RB Demetris Murray

Murray was actually my favorite breakout player this year, but I have him only at my #5 because he did share much of his role. He is, however, my highest-rated running back of my 2010 list because he really did everything for the position. Murray entered the first game as a redshirt sophomore and picked up a lot of the slack left by senior Mo Plancher. As the season progressed, Murray became the lead candidate at running back for the team, but didn't earn a start. He posted 542 yards on 120 carries with 4 touchdowns, including that galvanizing conversion in overtime at Miami.

While Plancher was still doing his one-yard-per-carry thing, Murray took over the position in garbage time initially, but showed an outstanding combination of speed and power that resulted in his 4.5 YPC mark. His style of play was essential in Skip Holtz's ground-and-pound strategy at Florida, where Murray recorded 11 carries for 62 yards and a touchdown.

With two 100-yard games (against Western Kentucky and Cincinnati), Demetris Murray may very well have earned himself the starting job that he perhaps should have held in the second half of last year. Unfortunately for him, however, is the fact that he's going to have much stronger competition for the job this year, as he'll have to stack up against Colorado transfer, and former #1 RB recruit in the nation, Darrell Scott and Auburn transfer Dontae Aycock. In spring practice, Murray saw a majority of the carries, which just might indicate that his seniority and potential may have reserved him a spot on the field for opening day.

So what do you think, USF fans? Genus was a great player on the offensive line for the Bulls, but where do you think he should have been placed on the list? Murray was a great runner between the tackles, but was he the fifth most important player on this football team? Should these guys be higher, or lower? Leave your thoughts below. Go Bulls!

Welcome, Misplaced UCF Fans!

Recently we installed this application on the site's sidebar that allows us to see where the majority of our readers are accessing our site. It also allows us to see how they accessed the site, whether it be coming to the page directly, coming from a link on another page, or by searching something in Google. I'll be perfectly honest, I am absolutely fascinated with this thing. I can't look away from it or close the tab that has it.

Since I've been able to see what people are actually trying to find when they stumble across our page, I see now that many web surfers are searching "Big East Expansion" on Google or Bing (I actually don't know anyone who uses Bing, but apparently people do use it. That's right, reader in Greenville, North Carolina, I can see you searching "ECU Big East Expansion" on Bing!). Anyway, it's become more and more clear that the internet is cruel and ironic, as it has decided to bring up our site to the people who are searching "UCF Big East Expansion" on whatever search engine they are using. So for you in Orlando who came across this by Googling that very phrase (and I know you're doing it now, don't deny it), welcome! Unfortunately for you, however, I don't work for ESPN, so I am not going to tell you what you want to hear to increase my readership.

If you really have been keeping up with my take on Big East expansion, then you're quite aware by now that I am not a supporter or adding more than one Conference USA team to make the jump up to the BCS level. UCF is not that C-USA team. I'm really twisting my own arm to say that I want even one team from that conference, but if I had to choose one, I'd choose Southern Mississippi. They just seem like a more viable option right now than UCF or East Carolina or Houston. I want to make it very clear that, contrary to what many of you over in the East believe, this IS NOT an anti-UCF blog. I've got better things to do than talk about UCF. I will, however, take whatever opportunity I can to clarify that the Big East is trying to improve themselves by making additions to their league. Adding mediocre mid-level teams is not a prudent move for a conference that is trying to regain the respect of the rest of the BCS leagues in the country.

Bulls Baseball Wins Game, Loses Control of Destiny

USF went into tonight's game vs. Pitt with one thing on their minds: If we lose tonight, we may as well not show up tomorrow.

With that out there, the Bulls took the field, led by starting pitcher Kyle Eastham, and got to work on keeping Pitt from grinding them out of contention for the Big East tournament. Coach Lelo Prado knew he needed Eastham to keep his game together long enough for the offense to start producing. What he got was a gem, possibly Eastham's best outing of his career. Eastham went through a streak where he retired 16 straight Pitt batters before getting struck with a comebacker on that 17th batter. He got the out, retiring his 17th straight, but was a bit shaken up. He proceeded to walk the next batter before allowing a two-run home run to David Chester. That turned out to be Pitt's only offensive damage of the night, however, as Eastham finished his outing with 7 innings pitched and only two earned runs on three hits. Junior Carlin closed out the game, allowing just one hit in the closing two innings.

Carlin also got a chance to add some insurance runs for himself. After closing out a perfect 8th inning, he slapped a 2-run single to right field to increase the Bulls' lead to 7-2. Alex Mendez hit a two-run homer, the second of his career. Jonahan Koscso was the most productive of the batters, going 3-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.

As of now, South Florida is on the outside looking in, as they need to match the amount of wins by Seton Hall this weekend. Currently, Seton Hall has two wins over Georgetown, with the season closer tomorrow. USF plays at 1, but Seton Hall's first pitch is at 12:00. It goes without saying that I'll be watching the Seton Hall-Georgetown game on my phone at the stadium tomorrow afternoon. I think I speak for all of us here in Tampa when I say no one is a bigger Georgetown Hoyas fan than this guy.

So for tomorrow only, LET'S GO HOYAS!

Exorcise Those Demons

Can someone please tell me why the Big East continues to keep DePaul around? Seriously, if anyone has a legitimate answer to this question, I would love to hear it. Maybe it's because they're a private school with a good amount of money. Maybe it's because they're in a huge television market in Chicago. Those are really the only two explanations I can think of. Yesterday, USF Softball coach Ken Ericksen withdrew his girls from the field after concluding that the safety of his team was in jeopardy. I'll have quite a bit more to say after the jump, but first enjoy this Family Guy clip I've been using to illustrate the way DePaul went about this whole situation:

Vidivodo.com : stewie playing chess Etiket: stewie griffin brian play

That's Enough, O'Leary

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, and I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Many know George O'Leary notoriously as the coach who wrote false things on his resume for the head coaching job at Notre Dame by indicating that he was a three-year letter winner at New Hampshire when he in fact did not play at all, and had a Master's degree from a university that doesn't exist. Now, it wouldn't be fair to ostracize him forever for that one incidence, even if i did result in his immediate firing from the most prestigious program in the country, but now it appears O'Leary might just have a knack for bending the truth for his benefit. At a UCF alumni meeting, Old Georgie announced that the UCF-USF series was back on, saying that these two "nut job fan bases" will finally be reunited beginning in 2015. It was discovered soon after that there were in fact no solid plans to resume the rivalry. Athletics representatives from South Florida stated that there was nothing to indicate that the teams would be meeting in 2015 or ever.

Ladies Comfortable at Home Once Again

Another day, another two wins on the diamond for the Lady Bulls of South Florida. I had the pleasure of spending the day at the park, and it was a glorious day to be out there. In fact, if the people sitting down the aisle from me didn't keep getting up to walk out every 5 minutes and coming back 5 minutes later, I would say it was a perfect day. The guys from Voodoo Five were taking advantage of the outstanding weather at the USF Volleyball annual golf scramble tournament over at The Claw (link to come). I hope someday I won't be a poor college kid and actually have money to support our girls in a golf tournament.

But I digress...

As the guys from V5 were probably slamming back the 5th or 6th of their beers in the tee boxes, I was doing my part to support the ladies of our USF Athletics. The Bulls hosted Connecticut (17-20, 5-5 Big East) this afternoon, and Lindsey Richardson got the start for game one. After a bit of a rough start for USF, UConn didn't take long to load the bases with two walks and an error. Richardson kept cool, though, and struck out two in the inning to escape with no damage. The offense was uncharacteristically unproductive early in the game, failing to even get a hit until the third inning. After that, though, USF got back to their good old selves again, scoring two in the third inning with RBI by Ashli Goff and Kourtney Salvarola. The Huskies came back immediately with leadoff back-to-back solo home runs, but that would be the last we would see of Connecticut's offense for the game. USF was really in control for the rest of the game, scoring three runs in the bottom of the fourth. They also scored four runs in the fifth on only two hits in the fifth, as three UConn pitchers walked three straight batters with the bases loaded. Final score: USF 9, Connecticut 2. A game note: pitcher Sara Nevins got her 8th save of the season, moving her into first place outright for most season saves in USF history.

See what I spent the game doing after the jump.

That's right, I made my own scoresheet. I did one for Connecticut too, but I figured just uploading one would suffice. I apologize for the less than beautiful handwriting, too. The announcer was talking fast and I had to write everyone down.

Anyway, the Bulls didn't have much time to celebrate that big game 1 win, as they got started on the next game 30 minutes later. Richardson got back on the field for game 2, and this time she seemed just about the same. Connecticut made a few changes to the lineup, but it proved to not make much of an improvement as the Huskies only scored one run in the fourth on a sac fly to tie the game at 1, which was charged to Richardson. Sara Nevins came in to relieve Richardson, and at that point, the game was over. Nevins closed the fourth and pitched the next three innings nearly perfectly while getting a bit of run support, courtesy of an RBI single by Ashli Goff. Final score of game 2: USF 2, Connecticut 1. Another game note: Lindsey Richardson only got charged with one earned run in both of her starts today, but did not record a victory (Brittany Bowles got the win in game 1, Nevins in game 2).

The doubleheader sweep improves USF to 11-1 in Big East play, and boosts them into an outright spot,however temporary, for second place in the conference. They get a chance to move into first place tomorrow, but need some help as current first-place team DePaul is in New Brunswick this weekend to play Rutgers. Although the day in softball is over, this doesn't mean my day has to end. As I write this, I'm listening to Ronan O'Shea broadcast the USF Baseball game at Louisville and watching the UCF-UF baseball game on Brighthouse. It's a tough life, but someone has to do it.