Save Us, Obi-Willie, You're Our Only Hope

Hey Coach T,

I know you just took over, and you've got a lot of things to do, like recruit players and hire assistants and maybe move down here and have some kind of a Christmas with your family. But there's a matter we need to discuss with you that, if it doesn't happen, renders a lot of those things moot.

You're going to need to win, a lot, and really fast.

See, our conference is turning into a pile of rubble. Football teams keep leaving, and now the basketball schools, those conniving little pissants, think they're going to come out better off by ditching the conference and going out on their own. If USF doesn't do something quickly, we're going to be stuck here for a very long time, playing totally meaningless games in every single sport until we're all old and gray.

Not only that, but the guy who hired you can't even level with the fans and tell us what's going to happen and what our options are. Have you been reading any of the stories about the Big East for the last month or so? They hardly even mention USF, no matter what the context. Schools looking to get out? USF's not in those stories. Schools wondering what their next move is? USF's not in those stories. Pity for schools getting completely left in the lurch by all the coming and going? USF's not even in those stories. No one cares. It's like we don't exist on any level. We have no idea how to promote ourselves and what we might have to offer another conference, either right now or down the road. The whole department has caught a crippling case of The Fear.

Fortunately, you do not have The Fear. You might be the only one in that building who doesn't. And that's crucial, because the only way we're going to suddenly matter again is to get really good at football, and soon. You have to make it impossible for another conference to turn us down, because we're not clever enough to outflank someone the way Louisville did to UConn.

I know it's a lot to ask of someone who hasn't even been here a week yet, but this is where we're at. Basically everything for the next however many years or decades is riding on you. Good luck.

Sincerely,

- J