We've been rather preoccupied with basketball lately, and since we only have hints of what Skip Holtz, Mark Snyder, and Todd Fitch have in mind for this year's team, it's really hard for us to properly preview spring practice. On top of that, B.J. Daniels will sit out the contact drills while he recovers from surgery to fix a partially torn rotator cuff on his left shoulder. At least he can still throw the ball, which is better than nothing, but Evan Landi will have to shuttle over from receiver to play some QB, and Ryan Eppes, a walk-on, will get some reps as well. It will be tough to get a read on the true offense until fall practices. And with several holes to fill on defense, including five potential NFL draft picks, their spring is going to be just as much about figuring out the depth chart as it will be what kind of scheme they're going to run.
I will say that the thought of Jon Lejiste cracking the starting lineup gets me incredibly excited. I probably watched him blow up Tavares Pressley in that FSU game about 50 times in a row on my DVR. If you put it on an endless loop I think I could have watched it for an hour straight. Yeah, those were good times.
Oh, right, spring practice, sorry. Our motto going into spring practice is basically this Skip Holtz quote:
"Ever since I got here people have been asking me, 'How are you guys going to be?,'" Holtz said. "I always tell them, 'I’ll let you know after Tuesday. I haven’t seen B.J. Daniels throw a pass or anybody catch one.' So we’ll see."
In the spirit of not knowing anything about the 2010 Bulls, here are some links that might help you out as much as us:
- Tampa Tribune - Scott Carter hits all the main talking points and adds an important new one - the need for Holtz to keep USF's off-the-field problems from becoming on-the-field problems. Martin Fennelly also spent some time with Holtz on the golf course and turned in a column surprisingly free of one-sentence paragraphs and pithy insight.
- St. Petersburg Times - I'm a little disappointed that Greg Auman didn't crank out his usual 25,000 words on a given topic, but he did put together a nice story about Todd Fitch's game-planning abilities, plus a preview capsule that includes some bits about Mark Snyder's 4-3 under defense.
- Rivals - As part of his preview, David Fox points out two defensive linemen to watch - Claude Davis, who has a chance to impress, and David Bedford, who may need to fight for his spot in the rotation.
- ESPN.com - Brian Bennett's spring superlatives feature on USF highlights the strength of the offensive line and the perilous lack of quarterback depth. Then again, we all thought we were screwed when Matt Grothe went down last year and things turned out OK. He also found some things to watch around the Big East, if you want to keep up with the rest of the conference.