Sounds like the same problem we had last year with replacing Ward.
A year ago at this time, Kean, Oladokun and Flowers were learning a new offense. This time, Kean and Oladokun came into spring with a stronger knowledge of Gilbert’s offense than Flowers had entering his senior season.
“Now, Coach calls a play and we know exactly what to do,” Oladokun said. “Coach Gilbert has harped on Year 2, meaning everything should be faster, and it is.”
For as explosive a playmaker Flowers was, there were times when it didn’t feel like he was perfect fit in Gilbert’s offense. He completed half of his passes or fewer in five of 12 games. His completion rate was 53.1 percent, a sharp drop from the 62.5 percent in Willie Taggart’s “Gulf Coast” offense in 2016.
The Bulls finished No. 10 in scoring, but the offense sputtered at times against lesser opponents, and Flowers would turn things around by relying on his legs to make plays.
A married dad of two girls, Kelly would seem to check the most significant box on the list of prerequisites outlined by USF search committee chairman Bill Sutton. On Monday, Sutton reiterated the school was seeking someone with the national clout to ultimately help propel USF into a power conference.
In addition to his position with the CFP, Kelly also served as senior associate commissioner of the ACC, where he worked from 2007-13. A 1992 graduate of Wake Forest (where he studied politics), he also logged a stint as an associate AD at USF (2001-02).
“There’s a lot of speculation right now that the Big 12 will expand,” Sutton said. “There’s also speculation that the big five (conferences) will become the big four, and each conference will have 16 teams. No one knows exactly how it’s going to play out, but we need somebody who’s tuned into that and can get us in the conversation.”
The biggest issue of Kelly’s tenure will be the potential for conference realignment. The search committee that helped hire Kelly openly discussed USF’s desire to jump from the American Athletic Conference to a power conference if realignment occurs in the next decade.
Kelly, also a former ACC associate commissioner, said the way to prepare for that is to maximize the present.
“Frankly, right now, we want to make sure what we focus on is being the very best we can be,” he said. "We’re in a great league right now. How do we dominate that league to the best of our ability? That’s got to be the goal right now.
“When we do that, when we build the tradition one champion at a time … we’ll be the best-positioned school of anyone in the country if anything else ever happens (in realignment). That’s our goal.”
Even with all that turnover, USF has high expectations in part because of a manageable schedule. If the Bulls can beat Georgia Tech at home Sept. 8 and Illinois on the road Sept. 15, they will have a puncher’s chance of arriving at Oct. 27’s massive trip to Houston with an unbeaten record.
That might be expecting too much of a team with so many new pieces, and a loss or even two sounds like a better guess. But even if the Bulls take a quantifiable step back, their record might not show it — at least not right away. Though they visit Houston, they avoid Memphis and Navy from the AAC West. The biggest game is again saved for last, as the Bulls host rival UCF the day after Thanksgiving.
“We are still nine days out and I have not made a decision yet on the quarterback,” he said. “But there are still some positions that are up for grabs and we still have enough time that we can we can get it fixed before the next game.”
Redshirt junior Blake Barnett, a graduate transfer from Arizona State, redshirt junior Brett Kean and redshirt sophomore Chris Oladokun are taking their battle down to the wire.
“They have done a really good job and they respect one another,” said Strong, in his second season at USF. “They have been given enough reps and it has been evenly distributed, so now we have to go make a decision on what guy it is going to be.”
Saw a lot of USF folks wanting the school to bring Khator back. I’m about 99% sure Renu won’t go anywhere.
During her 18 years in office, Genshaft has led a university that has exploded in growth and academic profile. The claiming of preeminent status from the Florida Legislature, and the additional revenue and status it conferred, was made official in July of this year. It put USF in the same funding pools as the University of Florida and Florida State. Also under her leadership USF increased its endowment to $442 million (light years ahead of what was a peer school in Orlando), and changed the infrastructure of a campus devoid of natural features to one that is more modern and aspirational.
For all the Yellow Jackets’ triple-option proficiency Saturday (419 rushing yards), the Bulls didn’t succumb mentally to Tech’s trademark cut-blocking. The result was a 49-38 triumph and some unheralded defensive performances.
“I think (CB) Mazzi (Wilkins) told me today, ‘Coach, I got cut only one time. Last week (at practice) you cut us every snap,’” Strong recalled Monday. “I said, ‘Yeah, I just figured that’s what option teams do, they’re gonna cut you.’ But it’s all about preparation and how we prepare.”