Time to get caught up on all the news that was fit to print over the last couple of weeks, but we didn't get around to posting.
-- Based on his week at the East-West Shrine Game, Terrell McClain is going to the NFL Scouting Combine at the end of February. I let whatever Todd McShay says go in one ear and out the other, so I'm not linking to his report, but the Dancing Bear is getting some good press from non-insane people as well. We'll see how far McClain gets pulled into the NFL's draft hype machine between now and April.
-- The Oracle reported that three of USF's 2011 football commits early enrolled for spring classes -- quarterback Matt Floyd, and linebackers Antoine Pozniak and Mike Jeune. That means they'll be on the field in March to participate in spring practice, and maybe get them a leg up on playing as freshmen.
-- Ken's been keeping everyone up to date as new verbal commits are made. Unfortunately, Pahokee linebacker Rontavious Atkins might not make it to the team this fall. Greg Auman reports that Atkins is being offered a grayshirt because of academic issues, and he might choose not to accept it and consider other options. Auman points out that Atkins probably would have been a redshirt player this coming season, so deferring him to 2012 would have a similar effect.
-- Auman also has the rundown of all the award winners at the USF football banquet, and he also left a link to the photo slide show from GoUSFBulls.com. It's unfortunate that we found Jacquian Williams' red sport coat and shoe combination (photos 19 and 24) on the same day that the photo of Stephen Garcia dressed like a theater seat surfaced, but Williams' outfit is still quality. Sam Barrington's Pee-wee Herman* suit (photo #26) is also nice.
* Yes, I checked the spelling on this.
-- Brian Bennett's ESPN.com blog had a pair of interesting stories that were USF-related. First, he explained why his preliminary 2011 Big East rankings had the Bulls in the top spot. Later, he named Jacquian Williams to his Big East most improved team.
-- Two stories from Adam Adkins, who reported that Doug Woolard is bringing volleyball coach Claire Lessinger backand would like to bring baseball coach Lelo Prado back, too.
-- The indoor track and field teams had a nice weekend in frosty Minneapolis, winning five events at the Minnesota Classic and posting 13 qualifying times/scores for the Big East indoor championships later this spring. One of those belongs to football cornerback Kayvon Webster, who finished the 60 meters in 6.92 seconds.
This is a very back-of-the-menu calculation, but if you do the math and factor in the 20 extra meters at full speed (assuming a top speed of 10 meters per second), then convert to yards, that would translate to a 4.4977-second 40-yard dash. If you reduce the top speed to 9.5 meters per second, you get a 40 time of 4.39. Just remember, if you ever want to do the math and convert track times to football times, the speeds aren't linear. The last 20 or 60 meters are always faster than the first 40.
-- Interesting story from Mitch Vingle at the Charleston Gazette. Should the Big East try and renegotiate its TV deals right now, while the money is flying around all willy-nilly? Or should they wait until the contracts run out in 2013 and try and negotiate from a stronger product position, taking the risk that there won't be as much room for their programming?
-- We're not participating in the Volvo S60 promotion that you might have seen some other people writing about (most notably The UConn Blog), but USF's entry into this promo is Jenna Broughton, who lives in San Francisco. You can follow her tweets about the Bulls here.
-- Finally, a tip of the horns to softball coach Ken Eriksen, who's really gamed the hell out of this year's schedule. There are 57 games on the 2011 schedule. 45 of them will be in the new USF Softball Stadium or in Clearwater, while only 12 are on the road. And one of those is in Gainesville, so the only out-of-state games for the regular season will be the Big East road games. Well played, Coach.