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tariqsp8s · 4 years

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Control the Controllables: Tariq Speights’s journey through football

Story by Jordan Rogers

PHOENIX – Tariq Speights rolls with the punches.

Though he is now playing football at Eastern Michigan University, his path to a Division 1 school was littered with roadblocks.

Through suffering a serious injury, being constantly overlooked, and enduring setback after setback, there was a time when playing college football didn’t seem like an option.

But his ability to persevere and battle adversity has led him to realizing his dreams as a football player.

Starting out at the flag level, Speights has been playing football since he was four years old.

“When I was younger, football was a way in which I could just get my energy out,” Speights said. “It was just fun, but as I started to grow up, I found a way to appreciate the art of the game.”

As football began to get more serious for Speights, he found his way to Valencia High School in Santa Clarita, Calif. To date, the school has won 11-straight Foothill League titles, including all four years Speights attended the school.

Though he got called up in both his freshman and sophomore seasons for playoffs, he did not play full time varsity-level football until his junior year. Valencia head coach, Larry Muir, was impressed with what Speights brought to the table.

“He (Speights) really exceeded expectations in the intangibles,” Muir said. “Obviously, physically he was a good player. He was aggressive, tough, strong, and just a really good athlete. But what really set him apart was his leadership.”

Speights was putting together a good junior season in his first full year at the varsity level. After earning his way onto the starting lineup, Speights recorded 52 tackles through just six games, which at that point lead the league in that category. Game seven brought an opponent he had extra anticipation for: Saugus High School.

“Saugus and I had kind of a personal rivalry because I played with all of those guys during my eighth-grade year,” Speights said. “Those were all of my boys, so it was a big game for me.”

Speights answered the bell. By halftime, he had recorded 11 tackles, one sack, and one forced fumble. And although he didn’t know it at the time, the career game he was putting together came at a very good time.

“My junior year is when I started to get college attention,” Speights said. “Someone had told me that one of the colleges I was talking to was at that game, but I didn’t know that until after the fact.”

Two plays into the second half, Speights was running towards the play to help out on a tackle. As he drew closer, a Saugus offensive lineman rolled into his knee and he collapsed. Speights said he felt a warm sensation in his leg.

Team trainers rushed to Speights’s location, and not thinking too much of it, he walked off the field under his own power. He did not return to the game.

“My knee just felt super loose,” Speights said. “It didn’t really hit me that it was actually hurt until after the game.”

Getting MRI’s are normally a process that is scheduled out weeks in advance, so Speights had to wait a month until he could learn exactly what happened to his knee.

“I had been rehabbing a sprained MCL in my other leg during the weeks before then,” Speights said. “It had literally healed right before the Saugus game. In my mind, it was the same thing that I had. I was like, ‘Oh it’s just a sprain, I’m going to be good.’”

Unfortunately for Speights, he was wrong. The MRI revealed that Speights had suffered from a torn his ACL, MCL, and meniscus.

Instead of making the situation about him, Speights told Muir about his injury and specifically asked him not to tell the rest of the team. He wanted the team to focus on the upcoming game.

“His communication, and his influence on the players around him, is incredible,” Muir said. “He’s just a guy that understands the meaning of teamwork and team chemistry. He’s not going to allow the people around him to slack off.”

When he learned of his injury, it was difficult for Speights to come to grips with it all. He decided to get another opinion.

He took the injury to the team doctors at Valencia and after they did their due diligence, they had decided that the initial MRI was correct.

“I was shocked,” Speights said. “I was starting to get college attention and I thought I was going to get a scholarship offer. Stuff was really going good, and then that hit and sent shock waves over everything. Colleges really started backing off of me.”

After having surgery, Speights’s junior season was over. But he realized he had another season to showcase his abilities, so he did his best to stay positive.

“Especially with injuries like that, if you don’t adapt and keep a positive mindset through this whole thing, that is when you see situations where guys don’t come back from their injuries,” Speights said. “It’s just as much a mental injury as it is a physical injury.”

Speights got to work on his recovery right away. But nothing would come easy to him. When the meniscus gets torn, the leg has to stay completely stationary in order to heal, so Speights had to keep his leg in a cast for a month.

Keeping that positive mindset he stressed, Speights did whatever he could to stay in shape, including lifting in his free time at Valencia in his free time.

Six to nine months is the timeline it takes for the knee to recover, and in six months Speights was ready to begin strengthening his knee. But just like many others, Speights had to learn to trust his knee.

“That was the hardest thing,” Speights said. “It’s something that my physical trainer really helped me do. If you don’t trust it, you’re going to lose that quick step that makes people so great. It was a whole other mental process for me aside from letting my knee heal.”

After his recovery, Speights came back and was handed third-team reps. He would have to earn his way back onto the starting lineup. Valencia had other talented players, so he wasn’t going to just be handed his spot back upon his return.

Speights took it as a challenge. To this day, he believes having to work his way back up made him a better football player and allowed him to appreciate the game even more.

“He just came back on a mission,” Muir said. “He just had laser focus to getting back to playing at a high level. There was just no question he was on a mission to come back from that devastating injury.”

That laser-like focus didn’t end in the offseason. After re-earning his starting spot, Speights had yet another good season and was compensated with a First-Team All-Defense selection.

Despite his successful time on the field at Valencia, Speights still was still navigating through the recruiting process. He had some interest, but nothing serious.

“I knew in my heart that I could play at the Division 1 level,” Speights said. “It was something I was stressing to myself since my freshman year. But especially after my ACL injury, getting to play at a FBS school was kind of a far reach. Realistically, FCS football was probably my best bet.”

Speights, along with Muir, sat down and emailed every FCS school in the country, attempting to showcase himself in a way that a team would be interested. Northern Arizona University responded, saying they would come by for a workout.

“[My family and I] had actually visited all of the Arizona schools earlier,” Speights said. “So even before football became an option, I loved NAU.”

The special teams coordinator showed up to a practice in the spring. After he and Speights exchanged some contact info and ended up choosing to go to NAU with a preferred walk-on spot he was told her would receive.

Unfortunately for many student-athletes, they get told things that aren’t always true. Speights’s case at NAU was no different.

“He didn’t promise anything, but he eluded to things in a way that he probably didn’t have any authority to elude to,” Speights said. “Once I got there, the situation wasn’t what I was told it would be.”

That previously offered walk-on spot would not be given to Speights upon his arrival at the school. But like Speights had done at Valencia, he continued to push through when things got rough.

Speights was strung along. He was basically told week-by-week that he would be added to the roster, but that never ended up happening. What made things even more difficult was that he was sharing a dorm with other guys on the football team, but he was not playing. Speights had hit a low.

Much of the relationship between a college coaching staff and its players is built on trust, and after spending an entire year not playing football, Speights had no trust for the coaching staff at NAU.

But Speights wasn’t done playing football. He decided to go back home and walk on at College of the Canyons, a junior college located in Santa Clarita.

Luckily for Speights, Canyons was more than happy to have the opportunity to have him, as they had recruited him out of Valencia and lost out on him to Northern Arizona.

“He actually had practiced with us once or twice during his senior year,” Canyons coach Ted Iacenda said. “We were just ecstatic, I mean, we were so excited to have him. We wanted him badly.”

Junior college football is often fantasized and carries many stereotypes. The show “Last Chance U” was made to highlight all of those. But Iacenda, who is entering his eighth season as head coach of the Cougars, knows it is nothing like that.

“Our program couldn’t be any further from what that show depicted,” Iacenda said. “The one common denominator you see at our level is you see young men that are hungry for an opportunity. You see young men that are hungry to be coached, to be taught, to be developed, and to get to that promise land and chase those dreams.”

At 5’10”, 230 pounds, Speights has been slapped with an “undersized” tag since he started playing football. He’d been overlooked and undervalued. He fit Iacenda’s “common denominator” to a tee.

As soon as Speights got to COC, he got to work. He knew moving home de-motivates a lot of people, so he got into a routine. Whether he had classes that day or not, he would go to campus and knock out his homework early so he could spend more time working on his game, whether that be working out or watching film.

“In the back of my head, I knew it was a sink or swim moment,” Speights said. “For me, I had the mindset that COC was going to be the steppingstone for the Division 1 college that I want to play at. If I don’t give my all right now, I might not play this game ever again. I was going to work my butt off and I was going to put myself in the best position to have an opportunity to play at the next level.”

Speights’s hard work was again rewarded. As the heart and soul of a defense that allowed just 9.5 points per game and ranked No. 1 in the state of California, Speights lead COC to an undefeated regular season.

He was named National Division, Northern League Defensive Player of the Year and received an All-American selection. Speights recorded 76 total tackles, four sacks, two forced fumbles, and two fumble recoveries.

Iacenda found his time at the school very efficient. To him, Speights carried traits that are not normal for most people to have.

“He just had a tenacity that most kids or most human being in general don’t have,” Iacenda said. “Most people don’t possess one-tenth of his persistence and his ability to push through adversity. He had the positivity and the optimism to see that even though this was a bump in the road for him, he was still going to go chase his dreams.”

Again, despite his personal success and accolade-filled season, he wasn’t getting a lot of recruitment attention.

“Especially after the year I just had where I showed that I could play, I think people were just scared,” Speights said. “I think people were just worried about the height issues. I saw a lot of schools come in and not talk to me because that’s all they saw.”

But late in the game, Eastern Michigan University stepped in and took a closer look at Speights and his body of work. The school had just lost one of their linebackers and needed to fill that void. They thought Speights may just be the one to fill that void.

“Through recruiting, our linebackers coach went and saw a practice,” Eastern Michigan coach Chris Creighton said. “He called me up and said, ‘I’m not saying the talent level is the same, but this guy might be Mike Singletary junior.’ He was just running the whole defense and running the practice.”

It finally seemed as though Speights’s dream of playing at a Division 1 school was coming true. But when Eastern Michigan was looking at Speights, they were out of scholarships at the time, so Speights had to make a decision to go to the school and bet on himself by waiting for one to come his way.

After taking it upon himself to tour the school, he decided to go to Eastern Michigan. To this day he is very happy with the decision he made, and Creighton believes Speights has fit right in with the team.

“He’s been a perfect fit,” Creighton said. “He’s an outstanding human being. He really cares about other people and about this team and is obsessed with getting better. That’s what makes him a perfect fit.”

Two weeks into being with the team at Eastern Michigan, Speights was awarded a scholarship. He had finally reached a goal that meant so much to him.

He had always wanted to find a way to pay his parents back for everything they had done for him, and he could now do that.

“They have my brother and sister that they have to put through college,” Speights said. “It’s the reason why my injury in high school was such an emotional shock. I had always thought that if I could use my athletic talents to help out my parents then I would. Having that happen was a really big moment for me.”

After appearing in eight games a season ago for the Eagles, Speights has worked his way into the opportunity to receive starting reps this upcoming season. And for him, everything he has worked for will be coming to a head when he gets that first start.

For others who are facing adversity such as Speights has, his advice is to keep a positive mindset.

“If people would step back and understand that a lot of this stuff that is happening is completely under their control, it will change so many things in people’s lives,” Speights said. “Just control the controllables.”

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fmlfpl · 6 years

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Down the Rabbit Hole with Scott

FPL Cup Night Stalker, Round Three (GW19) Preview

Happy Happy Joy Joy! It's FPL Cup Time, Round Three!

And that means more psychopath level oppo research on the various FPL managers who our FMLFPL gang are up against in the FPL Cup this week. There are all kinds of crazy things you find when you go down the rabbit hole and I'm happy to be your tour guide.

Round Two / GW18 Recap

How did we do last week? Well, the five of us remaining went 3-2, so we win right? No, not so much. We might have to draft in a few more replacements to the squad

-- Walsh moved on with an 81-77 win over the Director of Communications for Derby County Football Club. Our fearless leader bagged five cleans out of a possible six, plus got returns from Salah, Sterling and Captain Rom, but needed a cheeky little six-pointer from RLC coming in off the bench in order to nip the win.

-- Our other fearless leader, Alon, did not fare so well against auto body mechanic CAT-D F.C., crashing out of the Cup 40-53, in what he feels was his all-time worst GW rank ever. Quite probably correct because it was his worst this year, at 4.4 million GWR, and I don't think there were even that many people playing the game last year. Soz Alon, brutal week, no two ways about it.

-- Producer Nate went out in Round One, and Guest Jason joined him on the benches this week, after losing 43-52 to the mystery woman Brazilian assassin numerologist chick. Straight killshot. Both teams had #CaptainFails (Morata and Kane), but Nate's opponent got eight and six from her other two forwards (Lukaku and Calvert-Lewin) as opposed to the two and one that Nate got from Vardy and Kane. That proved the difference.

-- Derek was matched up with a Canadian curler of some renown and accomplishment and he put the guy on ice, 63-58. Derek got double-digit points from Kev and from Captain Haz, while his foe suffered a #CaptainKaneFail of the two point variety.

-- I was up against some Ghostship of a team, nominally led by a tree surgeon from Worcester, and I chopped him down decisively, 73-38.

So what's on tap for this week?

Round Three / GW19 Preview (Stalk)

Walsh -- 1,028 points, 37,638th place

Zev0o -- Saif Salah -- 933 points, 790,691st place

Saif is an FPL Rookie but is still active and has made a move for this week. He spunked his Bench Boost chip in GW1 and got ZERO added points for it. Good Job by Him! Now some player profiles make me a bit nervous when I see them and I come straight out of the chutes pessimistic about my abilities to find them. Iraqi players with fairly generic names who only play in fairly large public leagues are amongst those profiles. Now I know it's hard to believe that I don't speak Arabic, Kurdish, Turkmen or any of the other various neo-Aramaic languages spoken in Iraq, but it's true. Those are on my to-do list for 2019 but until then, it makes it a bit hard to track down some of these guys and dolls. But I got lucky with this one. A Google of his name and his idiosyncratically formatted team name zev0o yielded this guy, for whom zev0o is the username in his URL. He lives in Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. His FB page consists mainly of selfies and you wouldn't even suspect him to be a soccer fan, until you get to one of his old profile photos which is a giant wallpaper of Andrea Pirlo. Saif has an injured Doucore in his squad and a front line before any moves, which consists of Kane, Firmino and Abraham, and a midfield of KDB, Salah and Sterling. His main differentials against Walsh will consist of KDB and Firmino, but if Lukaku goes off or if Walsh's Chelsea Crew come through, this one could also get ugly.

Derek -- 1,042 points, 18,760th place

DK -- Deepak Kadam -- 820 points, 3,163,372nd place

This is Deepak's first FPL season and he still seems active, although he hasn't made a move yet this week. This one is ridiculous also. One minileague with just three other guys in it. I can't link anybody to anybody and as far as I got is that the minileague name Chetana Boys may refer to a youth hostel in a residential area of Bangalore City. My mantra in this has been to not let the truth get in the way of a good story, so I'm going to go with Deepak being this guy, an award winning filmmaker in India, and that when he was making a documentary about the young lost souls of that hostel, his heart was moved and he adopted three of them. He has taken them into his palatial estate and they just geek out on FPL all year long and this is their minileague. Or maybe they got compromising photos of him and blackmailed him into playing FPL with them as their brush with greatness. Each are equally possible. In any event, the team doesn't look as horrible as the rank would suggest. And he started in GW3, so that affects things a bit as well. He has Lukaku and Firmino up top, and a midfield featuring Salah, Coutinho and Hazard. He has Otamendi and Monreal, and then it gets ugly in back, as Valencia is hurt and his other two defenders are Mbemba and Hunemeier. DDG goes in goal. Derek also has DDG, Salah and Hazard, and counters with differential spots of KDB, Kane, Austin and Christensen. Good luck Derek!

Desertonians -- Scott Ostdiek -- 1,037 points, 24,189th place

Lone Ranger -- Frank Hennelly -- 826 points, 3,043,668th place

And here's my guy... Frank is an FPL newbie and is still active, although he hasn't made a transaction this week. He was a surprisingly easy find, as a search for his name autofills with Frank Hennelly London and leads to this guy. His one league is called C412 Bond Street, which is the name of some big underground metro tube station overhaul project in London that was awarded to the company in his LinkedIn page. It also leads to him here on Facebook, where you can see a video of him sparring in a boxing ring. He's married with a couple of kids, is a Quantity Surveyor, whatever that is, and he's apparently had spinal surgery. He has a masters degree in Construction Economics and lived in Australia for a while as well, apparently.

Since I had a few extra minutes and since our original numbers are dwindling, I'm calling in a couple of subs. Eddie is active on the FMLFPL Patreon's Slack channel and is in my minileague, so I had already dug up his opponent, and same for another Slack member, Rincon:

Return of the Yeti -- Eddie Fredericks -- 1,068 points, 4,540th place

Gabriel27947 -- Gabriel Tan -- 968 points, 335,119th place

It's also the fifth year in FPL for Eddie's opponent, but he's clearly still active, at least as of last week. His top ever finish was two years ago at 85K. He played his Triple Captain in GW15 on Sterling, home to West Ham, to the tune of 2x3=6 points. Whoops. An England flag and two minileagues with the same small number of people with generic names did not bode well until I just Googled his team name and found him on Twitter. And with some Instagram pictures of food and minions here. And here, on another photosharing site. I didn't parse through these well enough to find out exactly what he does, but he seems to be from Singapore, likes to travel, and likes soccer and beer, and he's comfortable with large cucumbers, which would probably make him a good fit for the Slack channel. Too bad we will have to dispatch him from the Cup.

Cechmate -- Alex Stephens -- 897 points, 1,496,983rd place

FC 2-footed tackles -- Gustav Loth -- 901 points, 1,397,488th place

Gustav is a first-year player and hasn't made a transaction since back in GW13. He has a Swedish flag flying on his team page and I was nervous that it might be hard to find a Swede named Gustav, but there he is, with two of the other three members of his league as friends. He lives in Lomma, Sweden, on the southern tip of Sweden, and it's not clear what he does, but two of the friends appear to be researchers, one at a med school. The three of them went to the same high school together in Lund, Sweden. Gustav likes to surf and travel, by the looks of it, so maybe he's independently wealthy. His default formation has him with one striker who is the now-suspended Alvaro Morata, so that slot will get filled by Ayoze Perez. He also has injuries to Ward and Valencia and will likely be absent Daveed Silva, so he will be unlikely to field eleven. His armband is on DeBruyne, so that can always be fruitful, and he has DDG in goal and a pair of Chelsea defenders in Azpilicueta and Alonso to deal with.

Yes, that's three members of my minileague in the Patreon Slack; can you say that about your league? Invite them to the fun! The more the merrier!

Well, that's our trip Down the Rabbit Hole this week. Hope we all come out safely on the other side and I get a new box of puzzles to unlock for the next round. Merry Christmas to me!

Good luck! - Scott AKA @tempebug on twitter AKA desertbug on Slack

#FML FPL #FMLFPL #FPL #Fantasy Premier League #down the rabbit hole

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junker-town · 6 years

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UCF and USF are waging by far the most important battle in War on I-4 history

The in-state rivals have Black Friday’s biggest spotlight, with New Year’s respect on the line.

Two Florida rivals are set to play on Thanksgiving weekend with postseason stakes on the line. So far, that’s nothing new.

What is new: the game isn’t Florida State-Florida. As those longtime powers scrape for bowl eligibility, UCF and USF ready for a showcase.

No. 15 UCF has exploded to the best start in school history. The Knights are one of only four undefeated teams in FBS, with a high-octane offense and Scott Frost, the hottest name in college coaching. The Knights are two wins from a spot in the highest tier of non-Playoff bowl games.

USF sits in the unexpected role of spoiler. With a Charmin-soft schedule, USF was the one expected to march unblemished. But despite a 9-1 start, Charlie Strong’s Bulls can still overtake the division, then get a chance to beat Memphis and take that New Year’s bid.

And looming over all that is the question of where their conference stands in college football.

This rivalry’s history is short, but dramatic since before it even began.

UCF began play in what is now FBS in 1996 after over a decade in FCS and Division II. USF didn’t field its first team until 1997 and would join FBS in 2001.

Fans and alums wanted the two to play. The schools might have a commuter rep, but UCF’s undergraduate enrollment has swelled to the highest in the nation. USF is routinely in the top 25.

The game made sense, given the stretch of Interstate 4 that connects the two, just 90 miles apart. But it took time.

Like Florida and Florida State decades before, politicians inserted themselves. Lee Constantine, a UCF alum and state representative, twice proposed amendments in the early 2000s to force the schools to play each other. It became a public war of words while USF was in transition between athletic directors.

"We've tried to schedule them, but they've said no. As soon as they get a new athletic director, I'll try again," UCF Athletic Director Steve Sloan said of playing USF. "[In] just about every sport, we compete against each other. I think in football, it would be a mini Florida-Florida State rivalry."

By 2003, new Bulls AD Lee Roy Selmon followed through on a promise to schedule the Knights.

"It's the new "War on I-4,' " said [UCF then-AD Steve Orsini], co-opting the slogan used by Tampa Bay and Orlando in the Arena Football League. "From the time Lee Roy and I met in person in Lakeland, I saw the interest. The thing that put it over the top was Lee Roy Selmon's willingness to work it out.

"Our fans, players, administrators, the community - they all wanted to see this happen. It's a natural rivalry."

The Bulls owned the series early and lead 6-2 overall. The teams played annually from 2005-2008, and USF won each time.

Things peaked in 2008, with an overtime game coming down to a fourth down. After throwing two TDs late in fourth quarter to tie the game, UCF QB Michael Greco had a chance to extend the game. He was stopped inches short, and the Bulls won in Orlando.

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Then there was a break. The Bulls cited having a high amount of in-state opponents. In 2011, then-UCF athletic director George O’Leary had hinted at a booster function of the series returning. USF shot that down.

Finally, in 2013, both teams would face each other again, after they moved up to the American Athletic Conference.

And now there is even more recent bad blood. In 2016, with the result strictly academic, USF ran the ball, scoring a very late touchdown to win by 17.

“Scott [Frost] told me after the game he respected our team, but he’d remember that last touchdown,” [then-head coach Willie] Taggart said.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

While Taggart is now gone to Oregon, the two face each other in the best possible scenario for the AAC.

“I’ve always viewed them as potential juggernauts,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said in an interview with SB Nation. “I call it beachfront property, although they’re not on the beach. It’s important for the conference to have these two schools be good and be anchors.”

The two have quite the stage for this game.

It’s at 3:30 pm ET on ABC on Black Friday. There is little you’d rather be watching in the time slot.

In only Frost’s second year as a head coach, he has an offensive juggernaut. The Knights run a similar style to Frost’s old boss, Chip Kelly. For broadcasters, that creates an interesting challenge.

What you’ll see on the screen are motions and shifts and triple option principals. How it’s presented to you is the job of broadcaster Adam Amin and his partner Dusty Dvoracek.

“My goal for tempo teams is: let’s establish them early, and then let’s just kinda back off and watch them work,” Amin said in an interview with SB Nation. “We’ll identify the right guys. We’ll identify the skill players that need to be identified, but let’s just kinda scale back.

“Especially when you do have a good game or an important game or a hyped game, you don’t have to do much of the hyping yourself. You can just let the records that are on the screen and the fact that UCF is gonna have a big number in the Playoff ranking next to it on the graphic, you just kinda let that speak for itself too.”

The Knights rank in the top five of many per-game offensive statistics and are ruthlessly efficient in opponent-adjusted metrics.

UCF advanced stat metrics

Frost’s public persona is reserved. Amin, members of the crew, and the coach will have a customary pre-game meeting on Thanksgiving. Dealing with coaches who don’t dish details is part of the job.

“The more a coach gives us, the more I can give the benefit of the doubt if something does not go right,” Amin said. “That’s all we’re trying to do because we want to get it right. Because if we’re gonna analyze something — a situation — we want to make sure we’re giving an opinion based on some kind of evidence.”

With Frost, there’s an obvious talking point: whether he’s going to be UCF’s coach next year.

In 2015, the Knights went 0-12 in George O’Leary’s last season. An Orlando bar offered free beer until UCF finally won a game. In Frost’s second season, that bar is offering the same as long he remains in Orlando.

Frost has been linked to his alma mater, Nebraska, likely to open soon under new athletic director Bill Moos. Frost has also been tied to the Florida job, with a fan base pining for some semblance of offense.

“Scott’s done a really good job of handling it so far. With all the stories that are out there, it’s impossible to ignore,” Amin said.

Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

USF wasn’t supposed to be playing the underdog role.

When the season began, the Bulls were picked to win the AAC East by an overwhelming margin. They returned Quinton Flowers at quarterback and replaced Taggart with veteran Power 5 coach Strong. USF had gone 11-2 last season and finished on a five-game winning streak.

But 2017 has been a season of fits and starts. Sometimes USF starts slow. Other times, they let teams claw back into games. Inconsistent performances finally caught up in Week 10 when USF lost to Houston at home, 34-28.

Strong brought offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert to Tampa from Texas. That appears to be an issue, per the editor of SB Nation’s USF blog, The Daily Stampede.

“We’re begging for more screens. Begging for RPOs, begging for things like that,” Collin Sherwin said. “The biggest weapon they have is Quinton Flowers and his wheels, but they just seem real hesitant to have Quinton run. Some of USF’s best plays last year were just drawn up in the dirt and go.”

USF’s 7.17 yards-per-play rate last season was sixth in the nation. This season, that is down to 5.92, 46th nationally. USF is on pace to exceed last year’s number of plays (928 in 13 games), as they’ve already ran 835 in just 10 games. Usually more plays tax defenses. But USF doesn’t have the punch, particularly in the red zone. The Bulls are seventh in red zone attempts, but 87th in scoring percentage there.

Most of USF’s opponents were never going to make that deficiency truly matter; the Bulls’ strength of schedule has been dead last in FBS. S&P+ No. 3 UCF is a different animal, only the fourth team in the top 70 of the S&P+ rankings USF has played.

“If you could take last year’s offense and this year’s defense, you’ve got a team that could really compete with anyone in the country,” Sherwin said. “They’ve sorta been able to get one thing fixed, but not the other thing fixed.”

The Bulls are 9.5-point underdogs, and the Vegas total sits at 64. That might not hint at a Big 12-style shootout, but there should be points in droves.

“They haven’t been the underdog since the FSU game last year,” Sherwin said. “They certainly didn’t play well that day. They gave up 478 yards on the ground. It’s just been so long. You’ve got a senior-laden squad. They’ve got a ton of kids that are seniors that are gonna play. So they’ve got the experience the leadership, all that kinda stuff.”

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

A win means a conference title berth and shot at New Year’s, but not much more than that.

USF is not ranked by the Playoff committee. With this schedule, it’s doubtful the committee would have even ranked a 10-0 USF. Consider that an undefeated Marshall in 2014 had to wait five rankings announcements to get to No. 24.

UCF hasn’t been rising as it wins, either. After starting at No. 18 on Halloween, they’ve only risen to No. 15 through five rankings.

“I don't think the system has credibility if a team like UCF or USF or Memphis doesn't have a chance to compete for a championship, if they're a really good team, because they're in a so-called Group of 5,” AAC commish Aresco said. “I hate that term. I hate being lumped in. We've separated ourselves from the Group of 5 [one term for FBS’ five non-power conferences] by a lot of measurements.”

While Wisconsin is now filling its resume out with good teams, a few weeks ago, UCF had a similar resume, yet was ranked 10 spots behind the Badgers.

This week, there are seven two-loss teams ranked ahead of UCF, and three-loss Mississippi State jumped UCF after barely beating 4-7 Arkansas.

“It’s frustrating,” Aresco said. ”It’s been frustrating for a long time. I think in part it’s strictly the bias for the P5. There’s no question about it. The lack of respect still for what we do in our conference, and this is what troubles me.

“It irritates me, and it irritated me last year. We had a number of three- and four-loss teams ahead of some of our teams with one loss. All you can do is keep winning, keep playing well, and keep promoting the conference, and I think we have to tell people about certain things.”

The AAC has been aggressively marketing a “Power 6” idea. It’s pushed to alter NCAA legislation that allows the Pac-12, SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and Notre Dame to make separate rules for themselves.

UCF has P6 stickers affixed to their helmets tonight. Part of Mike Aresco and @American_FB's "Power Six" initiative. http://pic.twitter.com/C5NNmjA7pw

— Brandon Helwig (@UCFSports) November 5, 2016

When the 10 conferences in FBS agreed to the CFP structure a few years ago, there were no assurances that things would be a level playing field, but you understand Aresco’s gripes.

“Longer term, this kind of thing doesn’t help us, clearly, when you have teams this good not getting the respect they deserve,” Aresco said. “They’ll go out and play a bowl game and win decisively, and they’ll end up in the top 10 at the end of the year, but I’d like to see them in the top 10 of these rankings.”

It is undeniable, however, that this game is huge for the league.

Both USF and UCF were candidates to jump for the Big 12 last fall. But the Big 12 did not expand, and both stuck around.

They’ve risen as teams like Cincinnati and ECU have fallen. In the CFP rankings, UCF is five spots ahead of Memphis, whose only loss is to the Knights. Showing depth is important, something other G5 leagues haven’t done.

As far as conference games go, the league has never had a bigger one in its short history. Not with these stakes, and not with this talent.

So the War on I-4’s battle lines are drawn.

A sellout crowd will forego shopping to watch football. The Knights are a souped-up convertible with as much horsepower as any team in the country. The Bulls have what it takes under the hood, but have struggled to click on all cylinders.

The road has been long, but now it’s clear.

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Will any college or university football staff score 100 details again?

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Will any college or university football staff score 100 details again?

Missouri’s rout of Delaware State past time turned heads, and the Tigers potentially could have strike the century mark had the groups not agreed to enjoy ten-minute quarters in the 2nd 50 percent just after Mizzou opened up a fifty eight- lead. Scott Kane/Icon Sportswire

Former Houston quarterback Ken Bailey remembers effectively the past time he played in the Astrodome. Bailey was on the sideline soaking in the spoils of another significant victory. The match was down to its last minutes when he observed the chants.

“We want 100! We want 100!”

Larry Gatlin, who would afterwards staff up with his brothers and go on to fame as a place recording artist, had just recorded his initially and only career reception, a 26-lawn landing move to give the Cougars a 93-6 lead (Certainly, which is ninety-a few details) in excess of the browsing Tulsa Golden Hurricane. The canines had extensive back been named off, but Gatlin’s loved ones was in city from Lubbock and he managed to discuss his teammates into throwing a person much more move to give him a style of glory. Now in just placing length of triple digits, the Houston devoted smelled blood. The Cougars on the sideline smelled it also.

Mentor Monthly bill Yeoman heard the calls from the crowd and needed absolutely nothing to do with them. Recommendations made their way down the sideline that the third-string offense was to kneel on the ball if it had to acquire the industry again. The defense, which involved senior linebacker Wade Phillips (Certainly, which is NFL coaching veteran Wade Phillips), caught wind of the strategy and decided they needed to make an endeavor to appease the crowd.

Tulsa, badly overmatched to commence with and even more exhausted by a flu bug that had knocked a very good chunk of the depth chart off its toes in the course of the week, swiftly churned by way of its initially a few downs and despatched its punt staff on to the industry again. Most of the Tulsa roster, which involved a freshman linebacker named Phil McGraw (Certainly, which is the a person who has considering that get rid of the “McGraw” for a Dr. prefix and a daytime tv display) had specified up at minimum a quarter back.

Phillips will not bear in mind who made the conclusion to put the initially-staff defense back again on the industry with about two minutes to enjoy. But he is familiar with he was lined up to block when Tulsa punted, and cornerback Mike Simpson promptly returned it for a landing — Houston’s 14th of the match. An more stage afterwards and they had attained 100.

“We had scored a great deal of details right before, but all the unexpected it just received out of hand,” Phillips mentioned. “…To be straightforward, I am astonished somebody else hasn’t completed it however.”

It has been 49 years considering that Houston strike the century mark in the Astrodome, and no Division I football staff has matched the mark considering that. Regardless of the explosion in offensive performance in the twenty first century, no staff in the previous ten years has come in just two touchdowns of matching the 1968 Cougars’ most important day. Which raises the concern: Will everyone do it again?

“That would be actually neat,” suggests Drew Lock, who threw for five touchdowns in Missouri’s seventy nine- rout of Delaware State past September — the optimum stage overall of the 2016 time. The Tigers opened up a fifty eight- lead right before equally groups agreed to enjoy ten-minute quarters in the 2nd 50 percent. Lock suggests it could be tricky in SEC place, but he thinks achieving 100 is possible in the appropriate conditions.

Houston attained 70-additionally details in two other games earlier that calendar year many thanks mostly to its revolutionary veer offense, but the Cougars needed a around-ideal storm to make the sizable leap to 100. Some of the features that served them get there are nevertheless quick more than enough to think about in a match right now. Other people could be tougher to come by.

Speed thrills

School football is the moment again in an period when offenses are evolving at a speedier price than defenses. There are about a dozen games per calendar year (11 in 2016 and thirteen in 2015) in which the winner scored 70-additionally details. Evaluate that to a 10 years earlier in 2006 when no staff attained the 70-stage mark and only 15 games topped sixty-additionally details.

Modern offenses are engineered to score swiftly. Many thanks to ESPN’s Stats & Information and facts, we know the average length of all scoring drives (touchdowns and industry plans) for FBS groups in the course of the 2016 time was two:51. It is not a fluke, both, as offenses are slowly speeding up. In 2006, the average time per scoring generate was three:05. In 2011, it was two:fifty six.

The quickest offenses in the nation have all hovered all over or just previously mentioned the two-minute mark in the course of the previous 10 years. There were 28 groups that averaged two:30 or less per scoring generate in 2016.

So it’s not uncommon for a staff to generate down the industry and score in less than two minutes. If an offense were to line up 15 of individuals drives in a row, it could break the 100-stage mark while splitting time of possession evenly with its opponent.

In principle, it’s not tough to think about. The greatest offenses have no trouble placing jointly dozens of drives each individual calendar year that acquire less than two minutes. From a chance standpoint, it’s only a matter of time right before a person group manages to string 15 of them jointly in a person match.

The boxscore from Nov. 23, 1968 demonstrates every little thing went Houston’s way in the 100-6 gain in excess of Tulsa. Forty-9 years afterwards, no a person has hung a hundred on the scoreboard considering that even with much more superior-driven offenses scoring at a speedier price than ever. Courtesy of Houston sports activities facts division

Mismatches could be fading absent

The School Soccer Playoff has discouraged mismatches by emphasizing toughness of timetable when grading groups. Some conferences like the Big 10 had long gone so far as to quit enjoying FCS schools entirely, although it has softened its stance a short while ago.

Even though there could be less of them, the mismatches that create outlandish scores nevertheless exist. The closest this century has come to observing a staff strike the century mark came in 2012 when Oklahoma State (No. three offense in the FBS that calendar year) posted eighty four details on Savannah State (one-ten in the MEAC) to commence the time. The Cowboys were typically scoring at will that day besides for a stretch in the 2nd quarter when they fell out of stride with a measly 35- lead. In a few consecutive drives, Oklahoma State threw an interception, fumbled and skipped a industry purpose endeavor. Had they kicked the industry purpose and scored on the initially two drives, the Cowboys could have finished the match with one zero one details.

North Carolina came near a calendar year afterwards, publishing 80 details on Previous Dominion right before the coaches agreed to shorten the fourth quarter by five minutes. Tar Heels mentor Larry Fedora had his offense acquire a knee on a fourth-and-purpose enjoy with two minutes remaining. He mentioned it was as not comfortable as he has ever felt coaching a football match.

“If every little thing occurred appropriate, we could see it,” Fedora mentioned. “It could happen, but I you should not want it to happen. I can only think about what that feels like on the other side, and I wouldn’t want that sensation.”

Breaking the code

The most important point standing in the way of a staff scoring 100 details could be the small listing of coaches who are interested in undertaking so. No a person, it looks, would like to be the dude to cling a Benjamin on another member of the coaching fraternity.

“I you should not believe any mentor is going to acquire it there,” Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury mentioned. “I believe they’d locate a way to not get in the conclusion zone at that stage. I would hope so.”

Other coaches, like Fedora, have a very little less religion in some of their colleagues to display mercy. (“You can determine them out yourselves,” he mentioned.) They aren’t as specific that some in the occupation would attract the line at design and style details aimed at impressing a bowl committee for the playoff selectors compared to embarrassing an opponent. Owing to the range of former coaches on the playoff committee, it could truly be a detriment to a team’s playoff situation to beat up a weaker opponent to these types of an serious.

Some coaches feel that if a staff is going to get to 100, it will need to have to be prodded on by an opponent that is also scoring at will. Kingsbury’s staff, for case in point, has allowed sixty-additionally details on six occasions in the previous two years. His offense is powerful more than enough that opponents need to have a serous cushion right before they sense cozy getting a foot off the gasoline. The closest a match has come to that type of scoring cost-free-for-all was Pittsburgh’s 76-61 gain in excess of Syracuse past drop.

“Did you pay out any awareness to the Pitt-Syracuse match past calendar year?” West Virginia mentor Dana Holgorsen mentioned when asked if he thinks triple digits are coming. “We’re approaching it. Hopefully, I am not a aspect of a match like that.”

The 1968 Tulsa staff was in no way threatening to commit any functions of repeat offense in late November at the Astrodome. Houston, nevertheless, scored 49 of its 100 details in the fourth quarter even with emptying its bench.

The imagined of hitting that milestone, Phillips and Bailey equally mentioned, didn’t occur to the Cougars’ gamers right before Gatlin’s personal quest to get to the conclusion zone pulled them to in just a person score. At that stage, they figured they could as effectively give the folks what they needed. They manage that their thirst for retribution (Tulsa had upset Houston on the road the past calendar year) didn’t cause them to ignore the game’s code of sportsmanship ethics. It was merely also tough not to score on the completely depleted Golden Hurricane staff thanks to the game’s unique established of conditions.

“I believe it can be completed again,” Bailey mentioned. “Particularly with the way folks toss the ball all over now, the prospects are there and points in everyday living are made to be recurring.”

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