More photos » Sam Greenwood - Getty Images

The CPU decided to crush our hopes of an upset under a barrage of 15-yard completions by John Brantley over the middle. And not one mishandled snap.

Browse more photos »

Time to fire up the PlayStation 3 and see what NCAA Football 11 says will happen when the Bulls and Gators face off on Saturday. As you'll recall, A.J. Love is out for most of the season with an arm injury, and he was not in the lineup.

Not that it really mattered.

FINAL SCORE: FLORIDA 41, USF 17

The Gators took the opening kick right down the field to the Bulls' 6, but then had a touchdown called back by a holding penalty. Then Caleb Sturgis hooked a 36-yard field goal.

After a punt, Florida drove the field again and this time got in the end zone for a 7-0 lead. USF responded with a 15-play, 80-yard drive that included four third-down conversions, and finished it with a 3-yard pass from B.J. Daniels to Dontavia Bogan to tie the game.

Then came two pivotal plays. Will Demps fumbled the ensuing kickoff, but Florida recovered. After a sack of John Brantley, the Gators were looking at 3rd and 15. But Quenton Washington blew his coverage on Deonte Thompson and Brantley hit him for a 59-yard gain. (The snap was low and it looked like Washington went into run contain, thinking Brantley would abort the play, instead of staying with his man.) A couple plays later, Washington missed a tackle on Justin Williams that let him score a touchdown.

Continue reading this post »

I set up an NCAA Football 11 dynasty for USF and then got out of the way to let the computer handle the season. (I went ahead and made everyone healthy again because there was no way to remove every player on every team who is hurt to start the season. So that means A.J. Love, Sterling Griffin, and Mark Popek are all in.) Every week I'll "play" the game and then post a recap.

First up, the Bulls played "FCS West" because I didn't change them to "FCS East" before I started the season. It doesn't really matter, though, they're all pretty much the same.

FINAL SCORE - USF 37, STONY BROOK STAND-IN TEAM 13

The game wasn't really as close as the score indicated. Stony Brook/FCS West got 10 of their 13 points off two turnovers - a deflected B.J. Daniels pass that was intercepted in USF territory, and a fumble return for a touchdown. Actually the Bulls were -4 in turnovers, giving it up four times while FCS West/Stony Brook was turnover-free.

Mo Plancher had a huge game, carrying 25 times for 204 yards and three touchdowns, including this 70-yard run on the second play of the game. However, he did lose two fumbles, including the one returned for a score.

Because of all the turnovers and some weird AI-influenced decision making, Stony Brook/FCS West was actually in the game in the third quarter. But down 27-13, they stalled in the USF red zone and then yanked a 28-yard field goal. On their next possession, they tried an ill-advised puntrooskie and failed miserably.

B.J. Daniels was 22-for-29 for 255 yards and two touchdowns, with Dontavia Bogan racking up 8 for 128 and a long touchdown right before halftime. The defense managed 14 tackles for loss, led by four from Keith McCaskill. Overall USF outgained FCS West/Stony Brook 471-236 and limited them to only six yards rushing.

One dim note - A.J. Love tore his pectoral and is out for 12 weeks. He won't be back until the Miami game.

Here's Bogan's touchdown and a monstrous sack by Terrell McClain that briefly knocked the Stony Brook/FCS West quarterback out of the game.

I know a lot of people have been visiting this blog after doing a Google search for NCAA Football 11 rosters. There was a USF roster for PS3 posted here a few weeks ago that was built using EA's TeamBuilder site, but all that did was put names on all the players. Since then I've gone back and revised some of the absolutely dreadful ratings that individual players were given. I won't get into any of the obvious conspiracy theories about where the game was produced and who did the player ratings, but I think we can all agree that USF has more talent on its team than schools like Marshall, SMU, or Washington State.

HERE IS OUR UPDATED TEAMBUILDER ROSTER. This is for PlayStation 3 users - I don't know if the roster will work if you have an Xbox 360.

The game lets you import TeamBuilder rosters into a dynasty, which is a major time saver. However, if you're willing to take the large amount of time to manually adjust the ratings of the original team, you'll get more customization down the line. TeamBuilder doesn't let you officially change the positions of players, or make any more ratings changes. So for example, you can play Evan Landi at quarterback on your depth chart and move Craig Marshall to defensive end where he belongs, but they won't be actually listed at those positions on your overall roster.

Here's how I went about fixing the USF roster. First, I took all the returning players and translated their ratings over from NCAA Football 10. A lot of players mysteriously got worse from last year's game to this year's game, which is ridiculous since they're the same players, and it doesn't look like there were any drastic system-wide player attribute changes. For example, B.J. Daniels actually got slower with a weaker arm, and all of the offensive lineman had their blocking ability noticeably weakened. That was all corrected. Most of the new players were rated so low that hardly any college team would keep them on a roster, so I bumped them up to about the level where it would at least make sense to redshirt them. The only exceptions are Terrence Mitchell and Todd Chandler, who were bumped up to about the level that four-star recruits like themselves would enter the game at (generally in the mid-70s).

Instead of the game's C+ overall rating (B- offense, C+ defense), the team is now rated as a B overall (B+ offense, B defense). I might have been a little gung-ho on offense, but the rating makes sense compared to most preseason rankings, which have USF around the 45-50 range. I counted 35 teams in the game still rated higher overall than the revised Bulls, and about a dozen others are roughly equal. Figuring that most of those equal teams (along with a few others with less talent, like Houston) would be placed higher in a real-life ranking because they have more experience and continuity, this new USF team should be pretty accurate.

With the new rankings, the Bulls are still either #4 or #5 overall in the Big East, behind Pittsburgh, West Virginia, and Cincinnati, They're even with Rutgers, and somewhat ahead of UConn, Syracuse, and Louisville. Keep in mind the game's ratings are based almost completely on talent, and don't take into account offseason flux like ours, or how certain real-life teams are coached up beyond their skill level - UConn being a perfect example. These shouldn't be confused for an actual preseason ranking or a prediction of how the season will play out.

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011

When you go to a particular school or grow up around college football, you are more than just a fan. It’s who you are. We thought we could leverage this pride in your roots and show that "where you come from" is more than just a statement about geography. By positioning NCAA Football 11 as a game that understands this pride and is authentic to these traditions, the takeaway should be that anything that is in college football is in NCAA Football 11.

And this doesn’t just include game play (though that’s a huge part of it). It’s rivals and mascots; it’s legends and stories. It’s those things that are at the very fabric of the game itself. Of course the game is great this year as well. With authentic entrances, mascots and specific offenses for each team, the term "where I come from" takes on a much larger meaning. While playing NCAA Football 11 is ultimately a great sports sim, it should also give you a sense of the pride and emotion one has for being a fan of a team they will never not be a part of.

Guys its that time, the new version of NCAA Football is now out in stores today. To me, the game was the first in a series of events that brought the offseason to a close. This version should give us some sort of insight into what we should see on both sides of the ball, since we really don't know what to expect. We hope that you guys go out and buy it if you haven't already preordered it, and give us a brief review of the game. What are some new things that we haven't seen before in the series, and how did they do getting the roster and Raymond James set up. If you click on the EA Sports logo above us, you should go straight to the EA Sports site where you can purchase it. We hope you guys enjoyed the series as much as we did.

You might have noticed that we've written absolutely nothing about how the USF football team or individual players performed last year, and nothing about what to expect out of them this year. There's a very simple reason for that - we literally can't do it.

Sure, part of that is because we don't have enough games recorded from last year to make any intelligent statements, and we'd rather say nothing than look like total fools. But the big reason is because we honestly have no idea what is going to happen this year. Other than the very first season in 1997, I don't think there's been a year where we've headed into fall practice with so many fundamental questions about the team, and so few answers.

Consider all these things:

• New head coach.
• Two new coordinators.
• New schemes on both sides of the ball.
• New position coaches all over the field.
• Gigantic question marks at running back and wide receiver.
• Defense trying to replace four NFL draft picks and two other departing seniors.
• Quarterback who, in spite of his immense talent, is used to creating plays on his own instead of running a standard offense.
• Just a ton of young, talented, but unproven players.

Right now this team almost defies analysis. Even the spring game didn't help a whole lot, because while the first-team offense rolled it up to the tune of 59 points, it was against a defense that wasn't allowed to make adjustments or blitz or put extra defensive backs on the field.

In the end, it's hard to have any big expectations for this team. I think generally we're all hoping to reach another bowl game, and anything on top of that is gravy. If you offered me 8-5 right now with a bowl win, I think I would take it, even though that's the exact same record the Bulls finished with in 2008 and 2009. There are two nearly impossible games (at Florida, at Miami) and three very difficult games (at West Virginia, at Cincinnati, vs. Pittsburgh) on the schedule, to say nothing of Rutgers and UConn, who have always played USF tough.

2010 could be a rough year, relatively speaking. But just with the transfers Skip Holtz has pulled in and gone after thus far, we're already seeing that he shouldn't have too many problems bringing in enough talent to win this conference down the road. As has always been the case for USF football, even better days are ahead.

Andre Hall had a lot of big games for USF. Not many people saw his first one, but I did. It's one of my favorite moments. via media.scout.com

View full size photo »

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11.

There are a lot of big moments in USF football history, the kind that make you jump up and scream and high-five everyone within a 50-foot radius. This may not be one you remember, because odds are you didn't get to see it, not even on TV. But I did. In the process, we saw the first big game from one of the greatest players in Bulls history.

The Bulls traveled to TCU on September 25, 2004. The year before, the Horned Frogs had ended USF's long home-field winning streak with a 13-10 win, a game where Gary Patterson basically destroyed Ronnie Banks's career with constant pressure. He was sacked, I think it was nine times, and hurried countless others. It got so bad that Brian Fisher had to be pressed into duty at QB, and he pulled off a ridiculous touchdown pass to Elgin Hicks to give the Bulls a shot.

When you think of TCU football in the last decade or so, you think of their defense. But in 2004 the Frogs' defense was shambolic. The week before the USF game, they went out to Lubbock to play Texas Tech. After TCU raced out to an early 21-0 lead, the Red Raiders collected themselves and scored 70 points in roughly two quarters' worth of game time. I remember leaving my apartment to go out for a day of mild debauchery after watching the first quarter and being quite concerned with how the next game would turn out. When I found out Tech had won 70-35, I started rubbing my hands together. This was going to be good.

Anyway, this was the payback game, and as it turned out, TCU had a long home-field winning streak of its own that would not survive the night. To get there, the Bulls had to survive the wildest game they've ever played. You probably missed it because at the time, Hurricane Jeanne was approaching Florida from the Atlantic. Hardly any Bulls fans made the trip, and the ones that did either lived there already, like me, or they were willing to risk their property for a not-really-important football game between two teams leaving the conference at the end of the year to head in different directions, and maybe never play each other again. (EXTREME FANDOM.)

Instead of relying on Pat Julmiste and the shaky passing game like Texas Tech had the week before, USF ripped into the Frogs' soft defense with some guy named Andre Hall. This was his coming-out party. 

Continue reading this post »

Brian Fisher against Army in 2003. We don't condone his off-the-field problems, but we do condone his short burst of on-the-field awesomeness.

View full size photo »

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

This is a pretty difficult one. Let's face it, we don't have decades and decades of players from which to choose our favorites. Plus our "15 for 15" project might make this post completely redundant. (I think there might have been a fistfight between me and Ken to write about watching Matt Grothe play.) So today we're going to write about our favorite non-top 15 guys, or our favorites from other sports. Here we go.

Voodoo 5's Favorite - Brian Fisher

Let's just get this out of the way at the beginning. Off the field, Fisher was a serial bad-decision-maker. He was such a train wreck that it finally led to him being removed from the team before the 2004 season, and rightly so. But in his short time on the field, Fisher was concentrated awesome. He wasn't an every-down player by any means, but when he did get on the field, good things usually happened.

The 2003 season was a weird one. It was the Bulls' first year in Conference USA, but halfway through it USF found out it was leaving for the Big East. That led to two absolute blood-lust road games against East Carolina and Memphis, both of whom were livid that USF got the nod over them. (Just to twist the knife even deeper, the Bulls won both games in soul-crushing fashion.) Then-athletic director Lee Roy Selmon accidentally scheduled two teams that wins against them couldn't be used for bowl eligibility, which meant the 7-4 Bulls couldn't go bowling at the end of the season. And we found out quickly that Ronnie Banks, who had the already unenviable task of following Marquel Blackwell as USF's starting quarterback, just wasn't up to the challenge. Fisher was going to take some snaps at quarterback that year anyway, but after TCU broke Banks's brain by knocking him down about 80 times in a single game, Fisher actually started the next week before Pat Julmiste worked his way into the mix.

Fisher was barely 5'9", and there was no way he actually weighed the 190 pounds that the media guide said he did. But he was quick and elusive, he specialized in improvisation, and he could run the option, which turned out to be crucial in a game that might have altered the course of the entire history of the university.

October 4, 2003. Louisville vs. USF in the Bulls' first C-USA home game. 36,000 people showed up, the second-largest crowd in program history at the time. Both teams scored quickly, and then the game settled in. USF had a 14-7 lead going into the final quarter, but the Cardinals struck for two touchdowns in less than two minutes to grab a 21-14 advantage. In the waning moments, though, the Bulls put a drive together and worked their way down to the goal line. (Fisher kept the drive alive with a 15-yard reception on 4th and 6 near midfield.) Then the drive stalled, and USF was faced with a 4th and goal at the 1-yard line with only 13 seconds left.

I was at this game and had snuck into the student section, so this fateful play unfolded right in front of me. Fisher lined up under center for the first time and ran a perfect speed option with Clenton Crossley. Right before he got hit, Fisher pitched to Crossley, who strolled into the end zone to tie the game with 10 seconds to go, leading to total chaos among the students. USF ultimately won the game in the second overtime as the students all rushed the field, and later Mike Tranghese, who was also in attendance, cited it as proof for him that USF wouldn't be in over its head in the Big East. The invite came one month later, and we've all seen the explosion of growth and prosperity (both athletically and for the University as a whole) stemming from that day. So for playing his small role in that pivotal moment for USF, Brian Fisher is a favorite player of mine.

Continue reading this post »

Toro's road trip story includes snow, craps, and Kentrell Gransberry. What's in yours? (Just a side note, I nicked this picture off a GoUSFBulls.com photo gallery and wanted to give credit.)

View full size photo »

This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 11.

We're going to do something different on this one, because none of us live in Tampa and therefore don't get much opportunity to do tailgating. Personally, I make it to far more road games than home games these days. So instead, we're going to talk about some of our favorite USF road trips. Toro is up first, and then Ken and I tell our favorite stories after the jump.

Toro Grande's Favorite Trip - Duel in the Desert, 2006

I own a few prized possessions that are USF related. I've got an actual game used football helmet that currently is prominently displayed in my living room to the annoyance of my roommate, a Cali girl that knows nothing about football. I have David Mullins game used football jersey, which is ironic because I'm not sure David Mullins ever played in a game. (ed. note: Yes he did, as a quarterback in 2002, and possibly as a linebacker in 2004, although there are no defensive stats to prove it.) I have Raphael Toren's basketball practice gear which he never got to use because the NCAA declared him ineligible before he even played a game, thus I treasure this the way a baseball card collector prizes an error card. But by far the biggest and best is that I have every road game ticket for every USF sporting event I've ever attended. I don't keep home games, just road ones. And that collection is over 100 tickets. Top that, people.

Obviously that's not just football and men's basketball. I've got everything from volleyball weekends in Philly and Pittsburgh, random women's basketball weekends against Southern Miss and Tulane because that means New Orleans as well as the Beau Rivage and I have a gambling problem, many USF-UCF baseball games, softball NCAA tournament games against UF, Bethune-Cookman, and FAU, as well as five different post-season men's basketball tournaments, and all the bowl games not counting the Sun Bowl. With the exception of USF sales staffer Mike Stuben, I'd argue I've been to as many games with as many different sports on the road as anyone that wasn't getting paid to be there. Nobody loves the road trips like me.

But asking me to pick a favorite is like asking me to select a favorite child. The West Virginia '06 and Auburn '07 games were probably the sweetest victories. Showing up at the C-USA basketball tournament in Cincinnati in '02 wearing orange jumpsuits with the names of UC's arrested players on our backs was a pretty spectacular moment as well. The '02 Thanksgiving weekend was probably the nadir. Though we beat FSU in the first round of the NCAA volleyball tournament in Gainesville, we lost to UF in the second round, then men's basketball got their doors blown off by Florida in the same building the following day. And that was also the weekend Cincinnati football beat ECU on the road, making the Bearcats bowl eligible and denying me a trip to Hawaii over Christmas for the Hawaii Bowl, not to mention screwing over a 9-2 team that was 4-0 against C-USA opponents despite not being in the league yet. Not good times.

But for sheer fun, I'm going with USF men's basketball playing in Las Vegas in '06 for my 30th birthday. Coach McCullum announced we were playing in UNLV's December tournament at the annual Athletics Auction. I saw him after he got off stage, and actually hugged him I was so happy. My beloved Bulls playing in my favorite city on earth was possibly the best birthday present ever. So I immediately put together a Web page inviting everyone I had ever known in my life to come. And then I realized the same thing that everyone with a birthday in mid-December realizes eventually; no one gives a crap about your birthday because it's so close to Christmas.

But I did manage to round up Justin, Chris, and Flavia for a weekend of freezing fun (it actually snowed on the strip while we were there) in Sin City. I remember showing Flavia how to get free drinks at O'Shea's while you play $5 craps, and being stuck $100 by the time we got our first two Corona's. I remember flopping two sets in three hands at Bellagio, and losing both in spectacular, stack-off fashion (this trip dropped my career Vegas winning record to 5-2). I remember how we had the run of the city, as we ended up at the very hip and always popular Ghostbar at The Palms one evening, and had the place nearly to ourselves. I remember freezing to death while having to take a picture every five feet in front of every Vegas landmark because I was with a female that had never been to Vegas before. I remember that Tony Romo was just starting to become a nationally known quarterback... and Justin is a dead ringer for Tony Romo. We might have tried to use that to advance ourselves in line at a club. I remember the amazing soft pretzels at the Thomas and Mack Center that were like manna from heaven after all the drinking we did prior to each of the three games. And I remember that if you ask a cab driver in Vegas "where should we go," you're only going to ever get one answer, and that's because they get a commission to take you there. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

But the basketball things I remember are this. One, it was Kentrell Gransberry's coming-out party. He wasn't eligible until the second semester, so these were his first games, and you could see he had all the tools to become an elite player. He showed an ability on the block that we had been missing since Will McDonald left. We knew we had a center now, and he was only going to get better. I also remember that Texas A&M Corpus Christi was a very good team, and clearly the class of whatever league they were in (they did end up in the NCAA Tournament), and that it was obvious Lon and Kevin Kruger were going to have a special year together at UNLV.

A cool side note. The team and most of the traveling fans were staying at the Monte Carlo, and we were as well. After we lost to UNLV, we had only one bus taking donors, fans, and team back to the hotel, and there were more of us then there were seats. The last thing a team that just lost wants is a bunch of donors and fans sitting next to them reminding them of the game they just failed to win. There were about six of us, including my group of four, that we just didn't have room for. I got off the bus, and figured we'd just take a cab back. But Coach McCullum wouldn't have any of it. He insisted all of us get on, even though we were literally standing in the aisle all the way back. He wouldn't leave anyone, not even fans, behind. It might not have worked out for Coach Mac at USF, but a classier and nicer man you won't find in college basketball.

It's the moments like that, as much as the ones on the field, that make traveling with the Bulls so special. If you truly bleed green and gold, I encourage you to start your own road game ticket collection. You'll be very glad you did.

Continue reading this post »