***BREAKING STORIES***
The coaching carousel, she doth spinneth away! Multiple news reports surfaced last week indicating that USF football head coach, Willie Taggart, has interviewed for the Oregon head coaching job. Numerous reports out yesterday have moved him from longshot to favorite for the job, with some suggesting that the contract has already been negotiated. The Tampa Bay Times’, Joey Knight, describes the USF football program as “eerily quiet.” Just one day earlier, Knight questioned whether Taggart was still in the running. Nobody in the media is more connected with the athletic department than Knight is, so those two stories combined suggest that change will be coming to Fowler Avenue. Taggart, a regular on Twitter, has not posted to his USF Twitter account since the 5th.
Looking Back
The women’s basketball team has started the season with a 6-0 record, ranking the team 22nd in the country in both the AP and USA Today Coaches’ polls. They have been to post season tournaments in each of the past five years and return eight players from last year’s team.
Spectrum Sports’ Lindsay Liqouri writes about how the Bulls’ seniors went from 2-10 to 10-2 in four years under Taggart. Articles like this remind fans how quickly a coach can move from the hotseat in a non-playoff conference to interviewing for one of the top jobs in college football.
USF football had their annual awards banquet on Sunday. Quarterback, Quinton Flowers, was named Team MVP for the second straight year and running back, Marlon Mack, was named Offensive MVP. Defensive tackle, Deadrin Senat picked up the Defensive MVP award. Freshman tight end, Mitchell Wilcox, was honored with the Freshman of the Year Award.
In other awards news that missed mention on the blog, the American Athletic Conference issued their football awards, as well. USF quarterback, Quinton Flowers, was named the conference Offensive Player of the Year. This is the first time in the four year history of the American Athletic Conference that a USF player has earned any player of the year honors from the conference. The Bulls lead the conference in the number of players to make the all-conference teams, with a total of ten. Three Bulls, Kofi Amichia, Quinton Flowers, and Marlon Mack, earned first team honors. Interestingly, Tulsa had the second highest number of players on all-conference teams, with nine. One might expect conference champion Temple (5) or runner-up Navy (2) to be leaders in that category. Even Houston, who had some of the best wins for the conference, had just four players on all-conference teams.
Looking Forward
After finishing one of the worst defensive football seasons in program history, some may have been expecting the announcement of a job opening at the coordinator position for the Bulls. Those who were hoping for news of that sort will be disappointed to hear that Raymond Woodie is still visiting with recruits. Given the news about Taggart, though, this might be a good thing for the program, to ensure incoming players that they should remain committed.
A 6-5, 180 pound, Florida State commit at quarterback will take his final official visit at USF on January 27th. James Blackman will also visit WVU. USF rarely competes with FSU for quarterback talent. He gets three stars from 247 Sports.
Calendar
| Dec 3 | Basketball George Washington at Washington, D.C. 2:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. | ||||
| at Washington, D.C. L, 68-67 RaiseHighLive.TV ▪ 820 AM ▪ Sun, | |||||
| Dec 11 | |||||
| Dec 11 | W Basketball Arkansas State at Jonesboro, Ark. 3:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m. | ||||
| at Jonesboro, Ark. Red Wolves Digital Network ▪ AM 1040 ▪ Live Audio | |||||
