The hiring of USF head football coach, Charlie Strong, continues to dominate the news. The praise of the hire is nearly unanimous in the media. Some suggest he will maintain USF’s momentum, while others call it addition by subtraction, suggesting that they’ve managed to upgrade their situation at head coach following the departure of Willie Taggart.
Looking Back
The USF men’s basketball team staged a 13 point comeback to beat Bethune Cookman on Monday night. It was the first action for the Bulls in nine days and they looked a little rusty.
The Bulls football team will be losing the services of Armunz Mathews. He has opted to play somewhere else.
Looking Forward
The optimism surrounding the USF football program is very high following the hire of Charlie Strong. This may be the biggest thing to happen to the program since inception, and it hasn’t even impacted a game, yet. The approval of the media has been widespread, with many expecting USF to improve significantly under Strong. Sports Talk Florida notes that no head or assistant coach anywhere has more top 20 recruiting classes than Strong. USF hasn’t ever had a top 20 class. Their current recruiting class is one of the worst ranked classes in program history, which makes the Willie Taggart admiration outside of Tampa seem a bit strange.
USF isn’t the only school to land a big name coach. MSN has a story that points out that every FBS program in the state now has a nationally known and accomplished head coach except FAU. And, FAU hired Lane Kiffin, so that means every state school is covered.
Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples predicted both Taggart to Oregon and Strong to USF in a tweet a couple of weeks ago. Now, he discusses how great of a fit Strong is for USF and vice versa.
