All kinds of Bulls notes to get to ...

After three weeks off, the weekly USF notes were back in Wednesday's paper, so here's a link, with notes about Chris Howard's friendship with Pitt's Sam Young, two USF players who could go high in Thursday's MLS draft and former USF standout Jessica Dickson starting a nonprofit foundation for at-risk kids in her hometown of Ocala. Of course, there's plenty more to link to ...

-- Doug Graber, a frequent analyst on USF football games, is back in the coaching ranks again, and could be going up against the Bulls in a few years. Graber has been hired as defensive coordinator at Ball State, which will play the Bulls in a home-and-home series in 2011 and 2012.

-- Former USF standout Altron Jackson's status as Conference USA's all-time leading scorer will soon be coming to an end. UTEP's Stefon Jackson now needs just 120 points to pass Altron on C-USA's all-time list. He actually just bumped B.B. Waldon out of the C-USA all-time top five. Those two have other C-USA career records -- Waldon has the most field goals made, Jackson the most attempted; guard Reggie Kohn still has the assists mark at 632. Gerrick Morris has the league season record for blocks per game -- 4.38 in 2003-04. USF still holds a few C-USA team records, all from a 2002 win against TCU -- points in a game (117), assists (34) and field goals (49).

-- And yes, thanks to a road win at DePaul, USF is up to No. 15 in the Big East "Power Rankings" at Marquettehoops.com.

-- Spencer Hall, blogging at Sportingnews.com, includes USF among his "Ten Things I Got Tragically and Completely Wrong" during college football season. He writes: "Three years running I have taken a running start and dove facefirst into the tree shredder of "USF: The Next Big East Champion!" And for the third year running, I end up ground to shreds when USF begins to gag on its Big East schedule, as they did again this year."

-- Yes, Bulls fans, we have a "Southern Florida" reference, in a strange column from Recordpub.com, detailing how bowl games are often won by the team playing closer to home. He suggests the national championship game might have been different had it been played in Tulsa.

-- Interesting soccer news from Jamaica, where USF is in the mix for Shamar Shelton, a member of Jamaica's national under-20 team and the younger brother of the country's No. 2 all-time scorer.

-- USF's ice hockey team, the Icebulls, is hosting the Madison Goss and Friends Pediatric Cancer Awareness Tournament this weekend, Friday-Sunday at the Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex. For more information, visit icebulls.org.

I'll check back in midday with recruiting updates on several Bulls targets ...

Comments

[Windbane]

Please inform us how Spencer Hall predicts we will do next season. I have a feeling some could predict us to win the Big East again. Rivals already did, sort of.

One of these years we'll live up to the expectations.

[sam diaz]

I replied to the marve post on usfnation, thank you for the welcome. :)

[The Truth]

"Three years running I have taken a running start and dove facefirst into the tree shredder of "USF: The Next Big East Champion!" And for the third year running, I end up ground to shreds when USF begins to gag on its Big East schedule, as they did again this year."

-------------------------------------

Oh, snap!

Hard to argue (logically) with his point, though.

[Smooth]

Hey Sam,

I assume you're sdiaz1 on USFnation, you never responded to one of my comments on Marve...lol

If/when you hear the update on JPP, please don't be afraid to post it on the message board

[Sam Diaz]

Since the defensive ends are all the talk in recruting the last few days and we will probably here an update at noon on JPP, the guys let it be known that Craig Marshall is a beast and they expect him to have a breakout year and hold on to that starting spot all year. Bedford does not have "it" according to them, so expect giddens and marshall as the des in 2010. Bedford might go down as a bust. Bogan they feel will the breakout offensive player and top receiver next year, and with all the talk about jerrell young at safety and q at corner expect jon lejiste to take on a big role next year as the breakout player in secondary.

[Sam Diaz]

I have a feeling Howard and USF are going to make this much closer than everyone expects. I expect big games by verdejo and gilchrist as well as they both played much better at depaul, and jesus can't possibly be as bad shooting as he was at the syracuse game. Howard has stepped up big time after the benching.

Any chance to get your take or an update on the Marve and USF situation during your midday post?

Talking with a couple of players last night, the view is bj daniels is the overwhelming player favorite to beat all comers including marve for 2010. They said basketball was really hurting his chances and focus though. BJ showed a lot of explosion and elusiveness at practices and is according to one player "much faster than grothe and the cannon arm is as good as advertised and much stonger than Grothe's", but he lacks focus on and off the field and command of the playbook and offense compared to Landi. Landi has the smarts,works hard, and is a football player period according to the guys. Marve might come in and with intelligence and experience be able to wrest the spot from bj if this remains the case. Inside take for what it is worth.