Football/basketball doubleheader?

Here's a true test for the hardcore USF fan: would you drive across the state to take in USF's men's basketball and football teams on the same day?

The schedule for the Glenn Wilkes Classic basketball tournament in Daytona Beach in November was released on Thursday, and USF's games would seemingly allow dedicated fans to catch all three hoops contests without missing the football team's huge showdown with Louisville on Saturday, Nov. 17. We're going to assume for now that the USF-Louisville game will be a prime-time kickoff, as the Bulls prefer for home dates, though there's certainly the possibility of an afternoon kick if it's picked up as Big East game of the week.

USF's game against Rhode Island on Friday, Nov. 16, is at 2:15 p.m., and the Saturday game against Florida Atlantic is set for noon -- early enough that fans could take it in, then make the three-hour drive back to Tampa for a night football game. Of course, they'd then have to drive back to Daytona again on Sunday, Nov. 18, for an 8:15 p.m. finale against Florida State.

Since our college basketball writers don't cover most road games because of budget constraints, I'm tempted to try to make all four games, providing that Louisville game is a night kickoff. It'd be just a week into USF's basketball season, an important time to see games and get a better feel for Stan Heath's first team. Recognizing that most sane fans will stay in Tampa on Friday and Saturday, I'm curious what the attendance will be like in Daytona for the first two games there. ...

Cornerback Williams on Thorpe watch list

USF senior cornerback Trae Williams, who led the Big East with seven interceptions and earned first-team all-conference honors last season, has been named to the watch list for the Jim Thorpe Award, given to college football's top defensive back.

I'm close to just making a Watch List Watch List, but what's most interesting about the 35 names on this list is that teammate Mike Jenkins, typically mentioned in the same breath as Williams, isn't included. The list will be pared to 10 semifinalists in November, then three finalists in December.

Williams is one of four Big East defensive backs on the list, along with Rutgers' Courtney Greene, Cincinnati's Mike Mickens and West Virginia's Eric Wicks. As far as others from Florida schools, there's Florida State's Tony Carter and Myron Rolle and Miami's Kenny Phillips.

So, to recap the USF watched list: linebacker Ben Moffitt is on the Nagurski list (one of 49) and quarterback Matt Grothe is 65 on the Maxwell list. Sixty-five seems a bit bloated to me -- I've been telling people it's easier to issue a Don't Watch List of players not being considered. But what's July without preseason college football accolades? ...

California juco infielder will play for Bulls

A month before fall classes start, USF still hasn't sent out an official list of coach Lelo Prado's incoming recruiting class, so news has come in bits and pieces, here and there. We knew a priority was upgrading the Bulls' hitting, and we've uncovered another solid bat coming to Tampa this fall: Jeremy Malmendier, an infielder from Sacramento City College.

Malmendier (pronounced, simply enough, as MAL-men-deer) hit .351 for Sac City as a sophomore, playing primarily second base, but he said his strength is at the plate, where he bats lefty and has shown a penchant for opposite-field hitting. He did not hit a home run last season, but drove in 25 runs and scored 36 with 10 steals for a team that went 35-15 and sent much of its starting lineup to major Division I programs and the draft.

Malmendier is the third junior college hitter known to be joining the Bulls, along with Chipola College's Trey Manz and Brian Hobbs. A native Californian from nearby Folsom, he also considered Oral Roberts and had hoped to get an offer from powerhouse Long Beach State. He hasn't been to Florida since he was 9, but is excited about reporting for fall classes next month. He moonlighted as a catcher his freshman year at Sac City, but said USF told him he'd be playing second, that is, unless its shortstop didn't return. Which brings us to ...

-- Former USF shortstop Walter Diaz said he'll sign Monday with the Cleveland Indians, who drafted him in the 48th round. Diaz could have returned for his senior year but said Cleveland has offered him a signing bonus that is "top-10-round money." It's tough for college seniors to command as high a signing bonus because they don't have the leverage of returning to school, as a junior does. "I made my decision based on what I thought was best for me and my family," Diaz said from Miami.

-- We'd reported back in May that USF and FSU would play in a tournament in Daytona Beach. That tournament has an official name: the Glenn Wilkes Classic, honoring the longtime Stetson coach. The first round will be on teams' campuses, with USF hosting Cleveland State. The Bulls then get three games at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach (I stayed across the street from the arena last weekend), with Rhode Island Nov. 16, Florida Atlantic Nov. 17 and Florida State on Nov. 18. It's the same weekend as the Louisville football game, so I'll probably only be able to get over for the FSU game.

-- Football walk-on update: Countryside kicker Josh Martinez, hoping to join the Bulls this fall, was not accepted into school and has accepted an offer as a preferred walk-on at Memphis. "I couldn't be more unhappy with the (admissions) administration there (at USF)," coach John Davis said. "My disappointment is not with the decision they made, but that it took so long to let him know." Davis said Martinez, the son of former major-leaguer Dave Martinez, lost a scholarship offer to play soccer at FIU while waiting to hear from USF. Another former Countryside kicker who'd been interested in USF, former Delaware kicker Zach Hobby, is likely walking on at Florida State, Davis said.

ESPN football ranking puts USF 58th

No, no, not any kind of preseason 2007 snub to get fans in a late-summer tizzy.

Just an update on those ESPN.com 1-119 rankings we told you about the other day: USF checks in at No. 58 over the past decade. It's completely subjective, of course, but that's about where I thought the Bulls would fall, right in the middle of the pack, graduating in the top 50 percent of the class, if you will. The writeup calls USF "one of those surging programs" and adds that if they did the list again in two years, the Bulls might be 20 spots higher.

Ranking 58th puts them fourth among Big East schools, just behind Pittsburgh but ahead of Syracuse (63), Cincinnati (69), Rutgers (70) and Connecticut (77). And UCF (78), for that matter -- looks like Southern Miss and Marshall will both be in the top 50, though as the only Conference USA schools ranked in the top 70.

-- One recruiting update: As expected, defensive back Charlton "Cha-Cha" Sinclair of Jacksonville Mandarin has been academically cleared by the NCAA and will report with the rest of USF's football team on August 4. Sinclair, one of the most highly touted members of USF's incoming class, is a candidate to play this fall as a true freshman, much like safety Nate Allen did last year.

Bulls get two commitments from Lake Gibson

USF's 2008 recruiting class has doubled to six verbal commitments in the last week, with Lake Gibson teammates Josh Garvin and James Jones accepting scholarship offers Friday to play for the Bulls.

Lake Gibson has been a reliable source of early commitments for the Bulls, starting with quarterback Matt Grothe three years ago, then defensive end Claude Davis, who committed last summer but failed to qualify. The latest are Garvin, a 6-foot-4, 275-pound offensive lineman who could play guard or tackle, and Jones, a 6-2, 232-pound defensive end who had 93 tackles and 12 sacks last season.

"I liked the way the coaches treated me and the way the players acted around each other," said Jones, who said he had offers from West Virginia and Indiana and also was recruited by Virginia Tech and Iowa.

Garvin, who moved to Lakeland from Akron, Ohio, his freshman year, said he had offers from Baylor, Ball State and Florida International and drew interest from Florida, Florida State, North Carolina and Alabama. Tide coaches called his line coach at Lake Gibson on Monday, encouraging him to keep his options open, but he says if he takes any official visits this fall, it'll only be so he can "enjoy the recruiting process."

"I don't plan on changing my mind. I'm definitely committed to USF," said Garvin, who said the Bulls didn't start recruiting him until this spring.

The Bulls are after another Lake Gibson senior, lineman Ricky Barnum (who has 20-plus offers and will take visits this fall), and are in strong position to land former Lake Gibson receiver Roger Frazier, now at Pearl River (with Claude Davis) in Mississippi. So in two years, you could have easily have five or more Lake Gibson graduates on USF's roster.

From the Where Are They Now Dept., Jones is a stepbrother of former South Sumter and Florida star Earl Everett, now a rookie with the Cincinnati Bengals, and South Sumter's Carlos Everett, who strongly considered USF before signing with N.C. State in 2006. He failed to qualify and spent last season at Hinds Community College in Mississippi, where he's now one of the top juco receivers for next year's class. South Sumter coach Inman Sherman said Carlos is talking to Florida and Florida State about next year, as well as Mississippi, but wants very much to return to his home state. And loyal blog readers will remember former South Sumter quarterback Jarrod Fleming, who had sought to walk on at USF in January but was not accepted into school. He'll play quarterback at Hinds this fall.

So much stuff, I'm splitting things up

I'll have some recruiting news up within the hour, but wanted to get some other notes out on a post of their own, just so things don't get lost in the shuffle. I'll try to get a minor-league baseball update out in the next day or two as well. Got the official preseason practice schedule from USF today -- only six days of two-a-days in 20 days of drills leading up to the first game week. To confirm an official time, Fan Appreciation Day is set for Aug. 25 at 11 a.m. ...

-- I'm tempted to do a list of the top 10 lists I've read this week. You can't swing a dead cat online without hitting a list of some kind. ESPN.com actually has one I'm intrigued by, ranking the 119 Division I football programs from 119 to 1 in terms of the past decade. They rolled out the bottom 19 schools on Monday, with fledgling programs FAU (105th) and FIU (117th) checking in. Curious to see where USF fits in the rankings, considering the Bulls were a I-AA program for four of the last 10 years. Since I'm a cheap shill for blog comments ... guesses, anyone?

-- NFL training camps are opening now, so we have links on several USF alums trying to land jobs. The Denver Broncos' official site updates Andre Hall trying to stick there, and the Kansas City Star writes about how young players such as Ean Randolph could be a big part of the Chiefs' roster this fall. And that spring optimism that Stephen Nicholas could be starting in Atlanta has leveled off; the AJC's Steve Wyche reports that with the signing of veteran Orlando Huff last month, Nicholas is now battling him for the backup weakside job there. Again, the only knock against Nicholas is his relative inexperience.

-- Really interesting story in the Orlando Sentinel today, comparing the announced attendance for Orlando teams with the actual turnstile count. Check out the UCF data in the chart the Sentinel ran -- the difference between actual and announced was never more than 15 percent from 2002 to 2004, then went to 19.6 percent in 2005 and an impressive 43.2 percent last season.

-- A few links I don't want to forget: Here's a longer story from the Times' Joe Smith that ran in Pinellas on John Gerdes taking the St. Pete Catholic job, complete with a Doug Woolard quote. And from my colleague Brian Landman, a good story on former USF stars Andre Hall and Thed Watson giving back to their community in St. Petersburg. And because Brian deserves more traffic, we're throwing some linkage to his FSU blog. Being fair, we'll throw Antonya English's Gators blog a link since she hasn't had a national championship in months. We're just trying to boost our college numbers in the ever-competitive Times blog traffic rankings. Solidarity, people!

Football season tickets selling strong

With big-draw opponents such as West Virginia and Louisville on the upcoming home football schedule, USF has already sold 17,800 season tickets for the 2007 season, about 650 higher than the Bulls finished with last season.

Assistant athletic director Jim Louk said Monday that August is traditionally USF's best month for selling season tickets, and by Louk's recollection, the Bulls are already at their highest season-ticket total since their inaugural season in 1997.

Ticket packages are selling well -- a recent promotion that included a USF helmet autographed by Jim Leavitt sold out, simply because the Bulls ran out of their allotment of helmets. The latest offering is a family plan with two adult and two child season tickets in the lower bowl of Raymond James Stadium for $300.

With this in mind, I'll ask two questions: what home game do you think will have the largest crowd for USF this season, and what do you think the announced attendance will be? To guard against sweltering levels of summer optimism, We'll play this by "The Price is Right" rules, so if you're wrong on the high side, you're out of contention for the invaluable bragging rights that go with the closest guess. "ONE DOLLAR!" ...

Gerdes leaving USF to return to alma mater

A busy summer of comings and goings in USF's athletic department continued Thursday with news that sports information director John Gerdes, approaching his 20-year anniversary with the Bulls, is stepping down to become athletic director at St. Petersburg Catholic.

Gerdes, a 1980 SPC graduate, said he was excited about the opportunity to return to his roots -- his parents still live in St. Petersburg. Check out Joe Smith's work on our Preps blog for more information on the SPC side of things.

You won't find many athletics staffers who have been at USF longer than Gerdes, whose last day will be August 3, coincidentally the 20th anniversary of his first day. It's the second departure in a month for USF's sports information department, following men's basketball SID Scott Kuykendall leaving to run the sports information department at Marquette. New associate athletic director Bill McGillis now has two hires to make in a short amount of time -- football media day is August 7.

John has certainly helped make the occasional difficult situation easier in my three years on the beat and kept the easy ones from getting too difficult. We wish him well in his new job.

Links, billboards and more links ...

I have to throw some inter-Times cross-promotional traffic love to columnist Howard Troxler, whose column in Thursday's Times has some fun contemplating other possible Sun Dome sponsors that Action Sports Media can contact in the wake of the past week's Academic Financial Services mess. I just like that his blog has a whole subtopic on "Privatization Follies." The USF sports relevance of AFS seems to be at 14:58 and counting, but I'm still getting e-mails from people, so I'll remind folks I can be reached at auman@sptimes.com.

-- Since March, the Big East has had preliminary discussions with the Devil Rays about the possibility of a new bowl there starting in 2010. Important to note that the conference hasn't talked to any other new bowl suitors, and because they'd like to have six bowl affiliations, such a deal wouldn't have to come at the expense of any of the existing five bowl contracts. That said, talks are in the embryonic stages, enough so that the Devil Rays declined to even comment on the matter until more substantive talks come about. My question for you loyal blog readers: do you think a bowl in St. Petersburg would have enough of a following to draw the required attendance threshold of 25,000 fans?

-- Florida Citrus Sports announced Thursday that Notre Dame will play games at a newly renovated Citrus Bowl during the 2011 and 2014 seasons. No opponents have been announced, and it's unrelated to FSU's commitment to play there in 2012 or 2013, so I'm sure USF will be mentioned as a potential opponent for the Fighting Irish.

-- Anybody else notice the USF billboard on the west side of 275 north, up between Busch and Fowler? Has big pics of Stan Heath and Jim Leavitt, saying "Go Bulls, From Your Team Doctors."

-- Just so you guys don't think we only harp on USF's recruits who fail to qualify, we offer a link to the Ocala Star-Banner, which has an update on former Ocala Trinity Catholic safety Antonio Allen. He didn't qualify at South Carolina, so -- tell me if you've heard this before -- he's headed to a junior college in Mississippi. Receiver Dion LeCorn, also once sought by the Bulls, is already enrolled with the Gamecocks.

-- Another recruit USF didn't get has failed to qualify: basketball star Jenirro Bush, who had committed to Heath at Arkansas and was touted as a possibility for the Bulls, won't play at Jackson State, where he signed. Instead, he'll play at Arkansas-Fort Smith. Wouldn't be surprised if USF came back after him in two seasons.

-- Florida Today has a story on softball phenom Kristen Gordon and how coach Ken Eriksen is giving her the summer off from pitching, hoping to energize her for her upcoming sophomore season.

Lake Mary linebacker commits to Bulls

Lake Mary middle linebacker Mike Lanaris said his father Mark had told him that once he had made up his mind about where he wanted to play college football, he should let the coach know right away. So on Tuesday, when everything about USF felt right for Lanaris, he called USF coach Jim Leavitt and committed.

At 7 a.m.

I guess that's what they call committing early.

USF's fourth commitment for its 2008 class is a solid one, a 6-foot-2, 230-pounder who also had Louisville, Arkansas, Georgia Tech and Central Florida in his top five. He put up strong numbers last fall as a second-year starter, piling up a team-high 122 tackles -- third-highest in Seminole County -- along with eight tackles for losses, two fumble recoveries and an interception returned for a touchdown.

"USF was where I felt most comfortable," said Lanaris, also the starting catcher on the Lake Mary baseball team. "Coach Leavitt and Coach (Wally) Burnham were huge as I made my decision. I'm thankful to be able to be coached by someone so respected in college football."

Lake Mary coach Scott Perry said Lanaris is a sideline-to-sideline linebacker, capable of covering a lot of ground and running through traffic to get to the ball. He was recruited to USF by offensive line coach Mike Simmonds, and has high respect for senior linebacker Ben Moffitt. Linebacker is a key position for the Bulls in recruiting this year, with Moffitt and Sam Miller set to graduate after this season, freshman LeBrandon Glover transferring out and signee Calvin Sutton failing to qualify academically.

The Bulls might not be done at Lake Mary, as Lanaris visited USF last month with teammate Jon Tenorio, a 6-foot-4, 305-pound offensive guard who has not yet been offered a scholarship by the Bulls. Tenorio is on a campus-visit road trip this week, taking in Colorado State, New Mexico and Idaho, but Perry said he'd consider staying close to home if he got an offer from the Bulls.

-- One more note: I watched a few minutes of open gym at the Academic, sorry, the Sun Dome on Wednesday afternoon, where 6-foot-11 walk-on Mo Esseghir continues to fit right in with the returning basketball players. The most obvious sight? Guard Jesus Verdejo watched from a chair with a boot on his right foot. He sprained his ankle Monday, but coach Stan Heath, reached Wednesday night, said the boot is just to keep his weight off the ankle and he should be back healthy next week. Practice starts in less than three months ...