There wasn't much new USF news for today's Bull-ogosphere, but there were a couple stories we needed to catch up on.
-- Last week USF's newest APR numbers came in, and the athletic department's two sore spots (other than their Title IX counting issues) continue to improve. Football's APR for the period from 2006-2010 was 952, a 21-point increase from last year, and up a total of 43 points from two years ago.
When Skip Holtz was at East Carolina, the football team's APR went up every year on his watch. USF's 2011 APR is higher than any of the Pirates' APR scores while Holtz was in Greenville -- their highest score with Holtz there was 941 last year -- but this may be due to the inherent advantages larger programs have in recording high APR scores. (More money, more budget for academic advising and tutoring and the like.) USF is now in the middle of the pack of BCS schools, and with Holtz clearly focusing his players on keeping their academics up, the multi-year score should continue inching up.
The men's basketball APR also rose out of the danger zone, up to 937. This is hardly top-notch, but it's nearly 60 points higher than their 2009 score. Only one other program is below 950, and eight of them have perfect 1000 scores. Another three have scores in the 990s. Looks good all around.
(EDITED: I had something in here about baseball, but I misread the chart and that made the whole paragraph wrong. My apologies.)
-- Bill Ward chimes in on the Tribune's USF blog to report that Chase Meyers is coming to USF for track and field. Meyers won the Class 3A state championship with a high jump of 6 feet, 10 inches, and also qualified for the state meet in the discus. Glad to have you, Chase.
-- I don't think we've talked about Huey Whittaker and Amarri Jackson being the starting receivers for Arena Football's Tampa Bay Storm, while Grant Gregory is one of the team's QBs. In their last game against Spokane on May 20, Jackson and Whittaker scored all six of the team's touchdowns (three apiece) as the Storm won 51-42. Huey is fifth in the league in receptions per game, with 91 in 10 contests, along with 1004 yards and 19 TDs.
-- HOLGORSEN IS AWESOME. STAY STRONG WEST VIRGINIA.
-- Andrea Adelson is taking over the Big East blog on ESPN as Brian Bennett gets shuffled off to their Big Ten blog. From our point of view, this should be... interesting.