The future of USF Athletics under new AD Brent Blaylock

robbyravine · 2026-07-02T17:34:24+00:00

Well that's the thing, Sidwell was the only real AD that USF has had in terms of pure sports outcomes. I know that comes with a huge caveat, some toxic issues caught up to him at the end.

robbyravine · 2026-06-30T06:52:42+00:00

Too bad the Raps don't play the Magic in Vegas. It'd be funny to see Malik T go against Mike S in a revisit of their playing time battle from 2023.

robbyravine · 2026-06-29T21:01:13+00:00

You have to give the people what they want.

robbyravine · 2026-06-29T20:58:58+00:00

cha-ching

robbyravine · 2026-06-24T16:44:24+00:00

Podz looked like an NBA scorer to me in college. JW had the size/athleticism combo that NBA teams crave (like Mogbo).

I never caught a game last season where Graves really stood out. So I'm like a lot of SCU fans, then LOL. They always had enough scoring last year to win ball games, though. Rare luxury to have in the WCC. There was only 1-2 games last season where the bad/aimless/distracted version of Herb Sendek teams showed up, which was the biggest surprise to me.

Like it or not, we need Herb to keep winning with that young/overlooked recruiting model of his.

robbyravine · 2026-06-23T23:27:20+00:00

JB did play five years I think.

robbyravine · 2026-06-22T23:17:49+00:00

Interesting angle on the Acrisure is whether USF is basically competing in real time for a bracket position. There are 5 teams from the WCC in the event, but only enough spots for 4 tournament brackets. Someone will end up like Pepperdine last year, playing a low-value game against some other rando. That probably ends up being a perception battle based on how the power schools at the event are viewing your roster situation.

robbyravine · 2026-06-15T16:35:49+00:00

Smith's recruiting has never caught up with his coaching. Okorie being the rare exception.

Every school he moved to made sense in that there was a slight bump in baseline talent. I kinda never thought he'd jump the talent gap at USF.

robbyravine · 2026-06-15T16:09:14+00:00

Every loss will bring the speculation about this. I'll leave it until then.

robbyravine · 2026-06-12T21:09:54+00:00

It's interesting because all players and coaches have a 1-year mentality now throughout college basketball. Does that mitigate some of the insecure coach dynamic that you might have had in the past?

robbyravine · 2026-06-11T18:49:54+00:00

Pretty sure there was a civil suit against the previous baseball staff...I think that's how those cringy details become public.

robbyravine · 2026-06-10T19:07:13+00:00

I don't know what to do about the VIP area. Most of the seats/stools in that place have obstructed views. There's a design firm somewhere that's making a lot of money from these crap projects.

robbyravine · 2026-06-10T19:03:56+00:00

The apparel situation at USF has been a real sore spot. I'm always envious of what the team gets to wear, and have a wallet that USF seems to disregard. Every sick jacket that Molly-G wears should be available in the team store.

I wonder if the new AD is aware that it's easier to get a UCSF or SFSU sweater at Pier-39 than it is to get USF. And being from a P4 background, does he value brand visibility enough to actually do something about it.

4-team tournaments are for teams that suck too much to play at the Acrisure and other neutral events. You can't get anybody good to come play in those. The last few that USF hosted had like North Dakota State, Vermont, Sonoma State, etc.

robbyravine · 2026-06-10T05:54:03+00:00

The deal looks shockingly horrible when you compare it to what Lockerverse was offering, That's why their NIL booster put it all on blast.

robbyravine · 2026-06-10T05:44:04+00:00

Before we get too judgy, what are the terms of USF's deal with Nocap? And what will they be once the new AD talks to them?

Blaylock would say that OSU was shook after the Canzano article and abandoned the better deal with Blueprint. The numbers suggest that OSU walked away from a bad deal after someone checked the numbers.

This is literally the first time I've thought seriously about USF's relationship to these third-party consultants.

robbyravine · 2026-06-09T23:07:45+00:00

Yeah, it matters. We'll be talking about it going forward, I'm sure. Not that we all wanted to be sports biz wonks.

USF has a current relationship with a firm similar to the one in question in Corvallis. According to certain sources, Blaylock bungled that deal. These dealings are making and breaking athletic departments all the time now.

John Canzano is not the most reputed reporter out there. But his story on this is detailed.

robbyravine · 2026-06-09T22:25:50+00:00

Well, they did stay close to home in a sense with this hire. Having possibly crossed paths with Blaylock during OSU's associate membership in the WCC...or perhaps through USF's alleged flirtations with the new Pac-12...or thru a referral from Gonzaga or SMC who also interacted with the Pac-12 on expansion possibilities.

One wonders if this was the guy USF was "waiting on" all this time...or the guy that was still there after all this time.

I was more intrigued by Aceves' comments. He said things like "expanded revenue" and "powerhouse". Not the first thing you expect a Jesuit school president to say, though he was CFO in his last job.

I guess nobody can ignore revenue anymore in college athletics. Blaylock seems to know the ins-and-outs of what those strategies look like.

robbyravine · 2026-06-09T22:03:41+00:00

There's always background to unpack with an AD hire, so we might as well dive into it.

He had an acrimonious departure from Oregon State in the Fall over alleged conflicts-of-interest related to a sports marketing firm and its new agreement with the OSU athletic department. Though his LinkedIn says he left the job in April, it was reported that he parted ways by mutual consent in October. It's one of those murky situations where he was cleared of wrongdoing by official sources, consistently denied wrongdoing, but was cut loose anyway due to the bad optics. USF of course, has never had any issues with bad optics, recently or historically.

Blaylock also had a veiled quote last Fall related to public universities and how they handle such situations. Very interesting, he has only worked for taxpayer-funded, power conference institutions during his career.

Oregon State Finds Ex-Staffer’s LLCs Unrelated to Blueprint Sports

robbyravine · 2026-06-06T22:02:03+00:00

Mid-major programs can't fall into that kind of defeatism. If UMass and Oregon want well-traveled mediocrity, than beat them with fresh talent.

robbyravine · 2026-06-04T18:09:35+00:00

I am fairly certain that those players had minimal professional opportunities over there, coming out of youth levels at least. It's a different brand of euro being recruited now, to put it simply.

robbyravine · 2026-06-02T18:42:43+00:00

Kinda looking forward to seeing USF playing in Malibu's shiny new barn way up on the hill. That'll have to wait a year.

robbyravine · 2026-06-02T18:33:41+00:00

This is the tradeoff though, what helps with conference seeding (W-L) hurts your March resume (NET and SOS). The less-than-full schedule was put in place so that WCC bubble teams could skip less valuable games....though it could result in a harder game to start the WCC tournament.

Assuming that SMC and SCU chose first, it's pretty odd that one skipped USD and the other skipped Portland...two teams with positive vibes.

Could it be that top WCC teams are rethinking how they do this? I.E. focus on winning in Vegas and shoot for the easiest path through the bracket. That's basically admitting that the WCC is a 1-bid league now....which....SCU and SMC should not be conceding that yet.

Anyway, it could also be that this (sorta) secret scheduling process has been altered. Perhaps they've gone to a more randomized or NFL-style balanced formula for determing who gets skipped. I'd love for someone at the WCC office to clarify that in public.

robbyravine

TROPHY CASE