(07-18-2014 10:03 PM)AirRaid Wrote: (07-18-2014 08:00 PM)pesik Wrote: (07-18-2014 07:47 PM)AirRaid Wrote: (07-18-2014 07:44 PM)pesik Wrote: (07-18-2014 07:42 PM)AirRaid Wrote: 1. Cincy
2. UCF
3. ECU
4. USF
5. Tulane
6. Houston
7. Temple
8. Memphis
9. Tulsa
10. UConn
11. SMU
Needless to say, I am very high on USF this year.
i get downplaying your team..but youve taken it a bit too far 
One word. TBush
meachum wasnt the greatest either and okorn was a true fresh and we still #5 last year and louisville is gone...
bush already destroyed tulane and this team already beat usf, and they lost their best players, good recruits or not ...at worst i see us at 5..under the top 3 and maybe a surprise team..beyond that i honestly cant see us sinking any lower even if bush flops ..gibbs is still a coach on the team...greenberry, matthews, Stewart etc are still on the team..we retunr to much from a decent team to fall that low, even on a slump.
Before we played Texas State, everybody thought it was going to be another spectacular year.
We have no clue if O'Korn has gotten better or not. At this point he is just as likely to continue his trajectory south than he has of reversing it. We also know that David Piland did NOT get better throughout the 2012 season, his performance remained stagnant at best. TBush was hired as the running backs coach, not the QB coach. Secondly, Bush "destroyed" a completely different Tulane team. That was Johnson's first year, and he was picking up the pieces after Tulane fired their last coach. This team beat USF because of defense, had little to do with offense, and that was also because Meacham, who was pathetic in his own right but still better than Bush 2012 performance. I am not worried about the defense. I seriously expect a better defense than last year, as we add lee hightower to our secondary.
Problem is the offense. I am not expecting much from the offensive line. That position will have more holes than swiss cheese, as we saw in the spring game. Season hasn't begun and we have lost starters, and we are expecting to fill those holes with transfers. Our defense looked like Ray Lewis's 2000 Baltimore defense against our offense. Because of which running game will be highly ineffective like last year. We already how much of an OC TBush against Vandy. Three quarters of complete ineptitude, I feel like T Bush forgot it is a 4 quarter game. Aside from that he makes idiotic comments how OOC games are preseason and the season "really" begins when conference games starts. Really I have no faith, that he can get the job done and he has given us no reason to believe that the offense will be polished and actually put points against decent defenses which wasnt' the case in 2012 or against Vandy. I am telling you, he won't return after this season. Much like Jamie Bryant
and before we played texas state we lost 80% of the offensive starters from a team that was all offensive, on a first year head coach whose highest coaching job was special teams, a first year OC and First Year DC.
we were only rated extremely high because of what we achieved the previous year, the same reason ucf, fresno and niu are all rated very in their conference despite losing huge, arguably the best parts of their teams.
that isnt even the remote case for houston next yeear. our coach is now very experience, our current DC was an elite level DC in the SEC/Big 10, and we return every single good player we had last year (except the punter)
and to rebuttal your very bad points..okorn didnt get worse he got way better as the season went along, it was the defenses we played that got way better as the season we along. flipped our schedule and okorn would have looked like a genius who magically got amazing at the end of the season.
the comparison between piland and okorn is just as bad, as piland was in his 3rd year in the program, you dont get that much better beginning of your 3rd to the end of your 3rd year, at that point you are either good in that offense or you arent. okorn was a true freshmen who joined the team 2 months before the first game, after only starting 1 year of high school on run first team, the amount of progress he will make should be substantial, the question isnt if he'll progress, the question is how much.
another bad point: you want to make an excuse for johnson but ignore the blatantly similar situation bush was in in 2012..bush wasnt given an off-season to prepare his offense, he wasnt even allowed to run his offense but tried to make someone else's offense work. as you put it "he was picking up the pieces after {Houston} fired their last coach"
sidenote: statically the 2012 offense was dramatically better than last year, its our defense that dramatically improvemed that made the difference (2012 ranked #15 in total offense, 2013 #55 in total offense).. so you are wrong there aswell
secondly our offensive line takes too much blame, they werent elite but were serviceable. we were 6th in the nation in most plays per game, and if you remove wards failed runs (which counted as sacks) we were one of the least sacked teams in the nation. the ol needs to improve on creating run gaps but were above average in pass protection and were very serviceable overall. at worst theyll be serviceable again this year and depending on how good the oklahoma transfers are they could be very good.
and as for the spring game performance on offense; greenberry, spencer, ambles, jackson, farrow, ross, ayers among a total of 13+ upperclass player who did not participate in the game. you watched the equivalent of a very fired up defense play a carefree offense mostly filled with players likely to end up on the scout team.
heres a post game interview with ward who said they didnt take the game seriously and were more worried about keeping players healthy and taking it easy
http://youtu.be/u6csknRiPz4?t=39s
long story short, im not saying we are invincible ir great but our worst case scenario barring significant injuries is 5th, we have too many returning players for a team that finished 4th last year and one of the best teams left ,and the other top 2 on paper might be getting worse.
give bush a chance ,im not gonna sit here and tell you im sold yet, but im not gonna use the 2012 season or the bowl where he was given short notice to take over other peoples offenses as my guantlet for judging him
