With football practice just a few hours away, let's check out a few roster notes/changes before the team heads out to the Morsani Practice Facility:
- Skip said this yesterday in his press conference, but it's great to see that all 17 freshman are enrolled and ready for fall practice in a few weeks. We've always had one or two or seven players not make it for various reasons, and its great to see Skip not only get talented players, but players who won't have a problem making it on campus.
- It was bound to happen sooner or later, but Terrence Mitchell will be wearing number 10 this season. A.J. Love is the only player still on the roster when Keeley Dorsey passed, so I hope he lets Mitchell know the significance of the number.
- Redshirt freshman Jake Kaufman isn't on the roster. I know Skip said that they will be evaluating his back over the next couple of weeks, but this might be an omen that his playing days at USF are over.
- Still kind of surprised that Ryne Giddins moved from 7 up to 97. I know Skip doesn't like double numbers on the roster, but Ryne was pretty established at that number. Maybe he just wanted to follow Terrell McClain's footsteps. The only double numbers I see left are 55 (Jeremiah Warren and Michael Lanaris), 13 (Curtis Weatherspoon and Bobby Eveld), 24 (Bradley Battles and Ernie Tabuteau), 40 (Chris Breit and Kalin Hall), and 11 (A.J. Love and Matt Floyd). With the exception of 24 and 40, each one of these numbers has a senior, so maybe Skip is just letting them ride it out.
Some other notable number changes (as also detailed by Greg Auman):
- LB Reshard Cliett changed from 37 to 16
- RB Darrell Scott moved from 20 to 3
- Marcus Shaw moved from 32 to 20
- CB Spencer Boyd and S Saki Mihalakos switched numbers. Boyd wears 31 now and Saki will wear 33.
- Freshman numbers! We already knew about Floyd (11) and Antoine Pozniak (44) who enrolled early, but let's see who will wear what this year:
- QB: Floyd (13)
- RB: Willie Davis will be wearing 32 this year with Shaw moving to 20.
- WR: Andre Davis and Ruben Gonzalez will be wearing 81 and 85 respectively.
- TE: Tye Turner will be wearing 45, which was worn by Kevin Gidrey last season.
- OL: Lot of new names here, so let's just do them in order. Brynjar Gudmundsson (61), Mak Djulbegovic (62), David Simon (63), Thor Joswiak (64), Max Lang (67), Jake Smith (69), and Darrell Williams (76)
- DL: Really odd choice for Elkino Watson (53) but he might just be waiting for one of the seniors to leave so he can take their number. Clavion Nelson (56) and Marquis White (94) fill out the roster.
- LB: Already know about Posniak (44), but Edsel Caprice (58), Corian Hamilton (42), and Zach Bullock (51) fill out the middle of the roster.
- DB: C.J. Garye (29) and Kenneth Durden (19) went and grabbed the lowest numbers available, which isn't out of the ordinary for defensive backs.
- K: Mattias Ciabatti (49) Not a lot of numbers left, but USF has had a history of kickers in the 40s.
- Not a lot of numbers left available. 14, 37, 77, 84, and 86. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the walk-ons with a double number will be "persuaded" to take the some of the open spots.
- Finally, congrats to Ernie Tabuteau, Justin Wilcox and Kalin Hall for keeping their roster spots after walking-on in the spring. Maybe we will see a couple of the other players who were cut back when rosters expand later this fall.