Here are today's bits of USF news and information as we start the month of June.
-- One of USF's early verbal commitments to Skip Holtz's 2012 recruiting class is now a bit less committed. Adam Adkins reports that Stephenson (GA) tight end Josh Parris is reopening his recruiting. Parris wants to play the same position in college, while USF wants him to convert to a fullback, a position they need help at going forward. I don't blame Parris for wanting to take another look around, and while he still may end up in Tampa, whatever is best for him is the right choice. (See how I did this respectfully without getting all pissy and taking swipes at a high schooler?)
-- President Judy Genshaft has been named as a member of the NCAA's bowl licensing task force, a group of presidents, athletic directors, and corporate muckety-mucks that will probably not change anything review the bowls' supervision, oversight, conflicts of interest, and other off-the-field issues.
A quick programming note: Even though it appears this task force has no role in deciding whether individual bowl games live or die, stay tuned for Toro's kibitzing and GarySJ's 75-part series on the lunacy of the entire bowl system, coming to a USF blog near you this summer.
-- Sad news as former Bulls men's basketball player Doug Wallace passed away in Miami back on May 21. (No age was listed, but doing the math he was approximately 45 years old.) Wallace played for USF from 1984-87, scoring 1009 career points and leading the Bulls in scoring average in his last two seasons.
-- We'll have some more thoughts about this later, but some Big East futures odds are trickling out, and if you believe there's a correlation between the betting line and a team's true likelihood of winning whatever it is the odds are set for, then USF has a good chance of winning the Big East this season. According to TheGreek.com (which has a gigantic take rate and is not recommended even if gambling were legal), USF is +200 as a futures bet to win the league, second only to West Virginia at +150. There are odds listed for every FBS league, so enjoy some of the other odds while you're at it.
-- Finally, Ken mentioned it on Twitter, and make sure to follow him for hysterical knee-jerk tweets as the Bruins start their first Stanley Cup Final in 21 years tonight... but we wanted to thank everyone who's visited the site the last two months. Even though USF's two main sports had already ended for the year by April and May, we recorded our two biggest traffic months since we came online. (Let's hear it for Google searches, Big East expansion rumors and John Marinatto's ham-fisted action!) Seriously, we really appreciate it, and we hope you stick around as we do our best to keep you entertained until August 3 gets here.