How did South Florida do it? Eleven years ago, the school didn't even have a football program. Today the Bulls are 4-0 and ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press poll.Ray Melick of the Birmingham News tackles the question of why teams such as South Florida, Rutgers and West Virginia have skyrocketed to the top of the charts. Writes Melick:
"Good coaching is part of it. So is commitment to the program. And scholarship limits have spread talent around more evenly. But those reasons don't explain everything, in particular how some very talented football players are denied admission to some schools but not others."
Melick quotes Alabama's Nick Saban, who says, "I think there are six guys starting on South Florida's defense who probably could have gone to Florida or Florida State but Florida and Florida State couldn't take them."
There are different admission policies from school to school, writes Melick, making it easier for some athletes to gain entrance into certain schools.
Meanwhile, South Florida officials are hoping the buzz created by the football team exposes the the university to prospective students nationwide.
"This will cause a few people to sit up and take notice," South Florida undergraduate admissions director Robert Spatig said. "We will seek to capitalize on it as much as we can."
Thanks to Sonny Side Up for the photo.
8 comments:
Whats been going on lately is all the craze about the University of South Floridas football team. As people keep brining up 11 years ago a football team didnt even exist here at this school. With the recent huge win over West Virginia University bringing the bulls to number 6 pepople think that it will help prospective students take a look at this school. Alot of atheltes or even regular students want to go to a big named school where they have a great football team or baseball teams because it makes it more fun. The admissions director is right when he spoke about taking advantage of the fact that our football team is becomeing increasingly more famous and that hopefully it will help and bring in aa bunch of new prospective students.
Is there a bigger joke than paragon of virtue Nick Saban pointing fingers at anyone else? Seems like he's got enough problems of his own to worry about...
so sad that saban is SO bitter that he let jamar taylor and mike ford get away....don't hate cause South Florida is having success....just step your game up
Nick Saban is a joke. You know how you know he's lying? His mouth is open.
Seriously, God Forbid anyone out of the sacred SEC has success those SEC kool-aid drinkers have to assume its a fluke or cheating. I hope USF beats the SEC champ in a bowl game like WVU did 2 years ago.
Surprise, surprise, Saban is full of shit:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/usf/2007/10/leavitt-fires-b.html
Just because Saban said it, doesn't mean that it's not true. It is a fact that the ACC and SEC have higher admission standards than the Big East.
And by the way, when the Big East learns to play defense, then maybe they will deserve the accolades that they have been getting. USF is far and away the best team in the Big East because they play defense.
The SEC takes partial qualifiers (you can have up to 10 on your team at a time, two per year), the Big East and the ACC (and every other conference that's not the Big 12) do not.
Game, set, match.
Saban should look at Ole Miss in his own conference...they would take ANYBODY. He must be afraid of Big Ed.
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