Catching up: Assorted USF links to peruse ...

Lots of little notes to get to and more coming later. Working on a story for later this week on how former college linemen are able to drop a ton of weight after their playing days -- you won't believe what guys like Lee Roy Selmon and Derrick Sarosi weigh now, just four-plus years after they suited up for the Bulls.

-- Remember Shalon Pillow? The former USF women's basketball assistant, who was on the staff at Hofstra last season, has been hired as an assistant coach at Kentucky. Wildcats head coach Matthew Mitchell was a grad assistant at Tennessee while Pillow played for the Lady Vols.

--Former USF soccer player Kevon Neaves, instrumental in the Bulls' Big East championship last fall, has signed to pro contract to play in Sweden, according to USF's official site.

-- More soccer: Incoming freshman Hasani Sinclair, already named a Parade All-American, has been named to the U.S. national under-18 team, which will play in the Milk Cup in Northern Ireland later this month.

-- USF has declined to offer numbers for season-ticket sales in football, but other schools are getting hit hard by the economy, as can be expected. Louisville, for instance, has sold about 6,000 fewer season tickets this summer, according to a story in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The dropoff is noteworthy at Louisville because the school is adding 13,000 seats to its stadium for the 2010 season.

-- Here's a link that will generate some comments: Sporting News blogger Brian Cook thinks that USF's hesitance to accept signee Kamran Joyer isn't a function of his borderline grades, but rather of the school "getting caught with its hand in the oversigning cookie jar." He's using lines from this blog to illustrate his point, but he's not really on the mark -- if the Bulls were up against the wall in oversigning, they wouldn't have given walk-on Cameron Perkins a scholarship for this fall. That's not the action of a football coach who's worried he's over the limit on scholarships.

-- Interesting follow-up -- in response to Brian Cook's blog about USF comes a story from Alabama blog CapstoneReport.com, saying Cook is so far off base he and the Sporting News should apologize to USF.

Comments

[David Weber]

Wow, Bryan Cook needs to shut up, and the Sporting News, which isn't really relevant any more, needs to exercise some factual control.

His entire thesis is wrong- borderline kids like Joyer are rejected because of the APR score, not because we're for academic casualties. If the idiot would do his research, he'd know that the Big East doesn't take non-quals.

I can't find an e-mail address for him, and the website isn't letting me log in for some reason, but someone should set him straight and explain the purpose of the committee and that the LOI is a football only deal and doesn't bind the admissions department to anything. It's a promise that IF the kid gets into school, he'll get a full ride. If he fails to get in, as is the case at many Tier 3 Harfurds, then the LOI is worthless.

The academic elitism is stunning- apparently if we want to finally have tougher admissions standards, both in football and at large, we can't do that because our name has a direction in it. The entire idea behind the committee is to ensure that we're getting better student-athletes and the NCAA obviously thinks it's a good enough idea to grant a waiver of the APR score.

The geographical jokes are old, too.

[BA]

Byron you'd be skinny to if you chased as many ambulances as Culpepper does.

[Hernando]

Former Buc defensive end John Cannon went from about 280 playing wgt. to 200 lbs. and became a very competitive tri-athlete. I think he is now a fireman with the Tampa fire dept. It can't hurt these big guys' hearts knocking off the weight and staying in shape.

[Steve]

Alight!! Soccer news!

[G.A.]

I'd think they won't make Miami single-game tickets available until real late in the process, hoping Miami fans will pony up for season tickets rather than wait. FIU did the same thing when USF played down there last year.

The Sentinel had a story a week or two back that had FSU down like 10-11 percent from last year, claimed that UCF was only down 2 percent, though I have to doubt that. Florida's still sold out on season tickets, but I think most programs will see a dropoff of at least 10 percent just from the economy ...

[flsportsfan83]

Thats what happens when you play 2 1aa schools.

[Brian]

Well, I renewed all of my tickets. Hopefully we wont be too far off from last year.

Now I'm really quite interested in the numbers.

[Byron]

Not sure of an USF link but I still can't believe how skinny (relative of course) Brad Culpepper has become.

[Ken]

Ouch, I hate to see a drop-off in season tickets. Hopefully, with Miami at home and if we can do well early, people will come back on board.