We continue our countdown from #99 to #1 as we prepare for the start of the 2011 season, leading up to Notre Dame. On days like today, when no one on the 2011 Bulls wears a number, we'll make our choice for the best USF player to ever wear that number.
You might be thinking this has to go to Craig Marshall, and while he did give us one of my favorite USF football pictures ever... he's not in the top spot here. The best #94 in USF history is Tavares Jurineack.
Jurineack is emblematic of how the young USF program sometimes had to acquire talented players. Tavares committed to USF out of Orlando's Cypress Creek High School in 1998, but ended up being academically ineligible. He grayshirted and joined the team in 1999, but then lost a redshirt season to injuries suffered in a car accident. By the time Jurineack finally got on the field in 2000, he only had three years of eligibility left. After making making 31 tackles as a reserve in the 2000 season, Tavares became a starter at defensive tackle and racked up 117 tackles, 28 tackles for loss, and six sacks in his two years alongside Greg Walls. HIs 18 TFLs in 2002 tied for the team lead with Walls, and they're both tied for third for the most TFLs in a season in school history.
After leaving USF, Jurineack had a cup of coffee with the Miami Dolphins and played in Canada for a few years. Unfortunately, it also looks like he was arrested for some kind of drug trafficking charge last year (unless there's another Tavares Jurineack from Orlando who was born in 1980), and I haven't been able to figure out how that case was disposed. But as we established during the 15 for 15 series last year, off the field incidents don't factor in our lists.