Sentinel columnist 'on the Bullwagon'

The Orlando Sentinel columnist David Whitley, unintentionally earning a motivational game-ball for his bull-riding photo and column last week leading up to USF's 64-12 win against Central Florida, follows up with a fun mea culpa column Tuesday, offering to wear any other opponent's colors the rest of the year for the Bulls. "Few things would be more fun than watching USF crash the haughty BCS Ball, so I'm officially jumping on the Bullwagon," he writes.

Funny thing is, USF coach Jim Leavitt, in showing his players the pic of Whitley riding the Bull, apparently didn't tell them the context. "I think it was just some fan, some random fan or whatever, who did that," defensive tackle Richard Clebert told the Sentinel. "That really ticked me off." The Sentinel's Mike Bianchi had harsh words for the Knights in Sunday's paper after the "embarrassing" loss.

Comments

[Rob]

[[ He's a funny little troll who makes idiotic statements to rile people up. ]]

Cee or Whitley? ;) They could be one in the same you know. :)

[Sanjay]

Cee will be back. If we lose any of the next 6 games he will be here saying that CJL choked again and cannot win the big one and say "Army 2004, UConn 2005, Kansas 2006, _____ 2007, 1-star players . . .." It is coming, we all know it. I don't personally care. He's a funny little troll who makes idiotic statements to rile people up. It apparently works.

[Mini Mike]

UF student not that impressed with USF. Clearly jealous: http://209.200.252.69/~gnnsite2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1948&Itemid=47

[Ken]

I think the article is pretty funny.

[Jim]

I am still living on the high of no more cee. We disposed of your little knights, what do you have to say now. We may lose a game but not to your team.

[Julian]

Rob

I agree with you. I think the "everyone is angry" story is just an easy one for people to write. Just as you said we are a large market that hasn't been taped yet. Also, being that we are in Florida I believe that gives us more credability in that there are so many good football players and programs down here. Finally, we have quality wins on our schedule (auburn, WV) that defeats the argument that we play in a weaker conference. All that being said I think we are getting a little ahead of ourselves being that there is still about half the season left.

[Rob]

Greg: Curious what you think. Like I said above, guys like Jimmy Johnson aren't big USF fans. However what about the "suits" in charge (rather than the ex-jocks, alum or fans)? I can't imagine they are really all that worried about the prospect of USF's high ranking. Ultimately it translates into turning a relatively big market (previously relatively untapped) into a big college football town, which in turn means more money for them. Not sure why they'd be as angry as people seem to think about that, surely it's what they wanted to happen when we got the Big East invite.

[Rob]

I'm not sure I agree with the general sentiment expressed by Whitley that USF are the worst nightmare of college football's governing body. I don't doubt that some fans or alum (like Jimmy Johnson) do indeed get their panties in a bunch about our ranking. I've seen lots of articles about how the "suits" would hate a USF national championship game because it would get low ratings and they'd make less money. I don't buy the argument. First of all the whole "major team = ratings" premise isn't always true -- a lot of times the "big names" in major sports finals have had low rated finals. More importantly, USF got a Big East invite so quickly because it's a big school in a big, untapped market. The people in charge are a little stupid (no playoffs) but they also saw the value in developing such a big school in such a big city with no major program anywhere nearby. It might mean a little loss this year (although the Cinderella angle is good enough to build interest) but developing Tampa into a big college football city is what they want to happen. I don't doubt some of the old-guard with close ties to the traditional powers might raise their eyebrows a little but ultimately money talks. They want college football to be big in a city like Tampa so USF's success isn't annoying them nearly as much as people seem to think.

Whitley: [[ Honestly, I just wanted to see if USF fans really have taken to football. It turns out they can be as satirically challenged as SEC fans ... ]]

It's not satire to act in such a way that almost everyone anywhere would react the same way. Go to any school wearing the colors of the next team that school's team plays and you'll get the same reaction -- probably worse in most cases. If he was going for some kind of Borat character then maybe he needs to watch the movie again -- the funny part is when the people are forced into exposing their true (usually embarrassing) beliefs and thoughts that otherwise they'd try to keep secret. "UCF sucks" doesn't really count -- I'll tell you UCF sucks right now without anyone needing to play dress-up. How does hopping onto the Bull statue when nobody is around qualify as satire? He didn't write anything about USF students seeing or reacting to that. The whole premise was that USF was easy to rile up but is driving 80 miles, putting car flags on your head and climbing onto the school's mascot really all that easy? That's quite a lot of effort to elicit very little reaction (aside from it being used after the fact as bulletin board material). I said this last time, unless that article was a backhanded satirical swipe at UCF fans then it doesn't make any sense or remotely qualify as satire.

[Steve]

Orlando: Tampa's biggest fans

Greg, have they tried to offer you a job yet? Maybe something for you to negotiate your current contract at the Times with? Please don't tell me you have an unsigned Sentinel offer letter in your office.

[Dave W]

Wow, even in defeat and attempting to curry favor, Whitley comes off as a jerk. He just doesn't understand that no one cares about the SAT thing when there are 44,000 people here.

Plus, Gallagher made a lot more money than he ever will doing the simplest routine ever. To me, Gallagher is the greatest marketer in the world outside of Mike Tyson.

But his reason at the end is good- just like many were rooting for Boise last year, the UCFers can at least be happy that the system is going to make a lot of people mad.