by Patrick Zier | May 4, 2025 |
It has not gone well for Team Penske this year. We are only 10 races into the season, and there is still time to turn it around, but it has not gone well. There have been wrecks. And blown engines. And sloppy pit stops. It just isn’t working.
“It’s obviously frustrating to be in a situation where we have really good cars that are capable of winning every week and we just haven’t been able to get it done,” Travis Geisler, Penske’s director of competition, commented earlier this year on NASCAR’s website.
Geisler’s comments were made in late March, and we are now into May, but they are as applicable now as they were then, despite the fact that Austin Cindric won at Talladega last Sunday
“I think the key is the process is working as far as what we’re bringing to the race,” Geisler commented, trying to find a bit of light in a sea of darkness.
“The hardest part of this game is finding speed, and right now, I think all the teams are doing that,” Geisler said. “We’ve just got to execute on all the other facets of the game.”
Well, ummm, actually, no.
There are two kinds of speed in NASCAR, there’s super speedway speed and then there’s real speed. Super speedway speed, of which the Penske cars seem to have plenty, is not real because you don’t generate it by yourself.
To go fast on a super speedway, you need to have a group of cars running nose-to-tail. That’s because of the draft. When two cars close in on each other, the lead car pushes the air out of the way for the trailing car, allowing it to get to the bumper of the lead car. In effect, the lead car is pulling the trailing car and the trailing car is pushing the lead car so both can go faster.
The more cars you have in line, the more this effect is magnified and it doesn’t matter whether your car is fast or slow, all the cars will go the same speed because of the draft.
If you pull out of line and run by yourself, you have to break through the air flowing over and around the car which hits the rear spoiler and slows you down. So, you can be second in a line of 20 cars, pull out, the whole line will go by you and suddenly you’re 21st.
“I keep saying there are positives,” Defending NASCAR champion Joey Logano commented. “We’ve led the most laps this year. We’ve done a lot of really good things. We are in way better shape right now than we were this time last year – like way better.
“And we’re much better on points than we were this time last year. That being said,” Logano continued, “it sucks to not convert fast cars into victories of top fives.”
That’s because the Penske cars aren’t fast away from the super speedways, where the real racing takes place.
By NASCAR’s count, Ryan Blaney, Logano, Cindric and Josh Berry have led a total of 775 laps this year. We are including Berry as part of the Penske team because the Wood brothers car he drives has a very close affiliation with Penske.
By contrast Joe Gibbs Racing, the strongest of the elite teams according to the Old Guy Sport competition index with drivers Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs, has led 515 laps, a sizable difference.
But if you subtract the three super speedways, Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta, Penske’s four cars have a total of just 420 points compared with 440 for Gibbs
This again shows how fickle super speedway racing can be. For example Cindric has only won three races in his career, and two are on super speedways including the Daytona 500.
Hamlin, meanwhile, has won three Daytona 500s including back-to-back wins in 2019 and 2020 and has led 315 laps this year but only 12 of those are on super speed ways.
On regular tracks, the Gibbs cars have four wins and 12 top fives led by Hamlin, who has two wins and five top fives in the seven races so far. The four Penske cars have one win and four top fives.
So in regular racing, Penske is being clobbered by Gibbs – and by the four Hendrick cars as well.
“You’ve just got to go back and review, was there anything we can do to avoid this (the mistakes)?” Geisler said. “What are the things in our normal process we can adjust to try and get ourselves to where we finish where we belong?
“That’s really the key right now,” Geisler remarked. “I think we’d be in really good shape if we just finished where we belong.”
The problem is, they are.
NASCAR NOTES – Three most likely winners at Texas: 1-William Byron, 2-Kyle Larson, 3-Denny Hamlin. Last year’s winner at Texas: Chase Elliott. Top five at Texas: 1-Elliott, 2-Brad Keselowski, 3-Byron, 4-Tyler Reddick, 5-Dennis Suarez.
Last week’s OGS picks: No picks, super speedway race. Last week’s winner: Austin Cindric. OGS season record:4-3.
OGS competition index top 10 after seven races: 1-Hamlin 218 points, 2-Christopher Bell 187, 3-Larson 179, 4-Byron 139, 5-Josh Berry 77, 6-Bubba Wallace 73, 7-Reddick 67, 8-Alex Bowman 52, 9-Ryan Blaney 47, 10-Elliott 45.
OGS competition index on intermediate tracks: 1-Byron 86, 2-Larson 64, 3-Hamlin 63, 4-Berry 53, 5-Bowman 48, 6-Wallace, Suarez 41, 8-Reddick, Blaney 32, 10-Bell, Ryan Preece 30.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 29, 2025 |
All’s well that ends well and for USF, it ended well this spring.
“I was a solid day because our trainer wasn’t out on the field a lot,” South Florida Coach Alex Golesh said after his Bulls finished up practice with their annual spring game Saturday.
“I know it sounds really crazy to evaluate a day like that, but you really just want to get out of it healthy,” he added.
For USF, it was a chance to give their young players some exposure under game conditions. The Bulls have gone through the spring kind of banged up with a number of key players, including both potential starting cornerbacks and a couple veteran offensive linemen, sitting out.
And while Saturday’s game was about the here and now, from a program standpoint Golesh remains firmly focused on USF’s future and instilling that in his players.
He wants them to understand that the things they are doing now will not only make them better when they come back in the fall but are also necessary steps to make the program competitive at a higher level down the road.
After the game, Golesh said “I told our guys really the same thing I told them at the beginning of spring practice. There’s this gap that we’ve got to close and we have to keep working on that as we go into the summer.
“You know back-to-back bowl wins; I think it’s easy to forget what we walked into when we got here,” Golesh continued.
“I’m not justifying any part of what we’ve done but walking in and starting from scratch in every imaginable way and winning back-to-back bowl games, there’s this next step we have to take and the gap is not huge. but it’s the hardest gap to close,” Golesh said.
“And in my time, I’ve been part of four, five other programs trying to close that gap, that’s the hardest part,” Golesh remarked. “It’s going from winning bowl games and being competitive to winning championships and playing meaningful games into January.”
And Golesh believes he and his players are on the right track. “We’ll get there when we get there, but I think this is as close as we’ve ever been,” Golesh said.
While Golesh has a lot of confidence, it will be difficult for USF to get where he wants to take it and even more difficult to stay there because he’s not talking about being competitive in the AAC, or even the Group of 5.
He’s talking about building a program that can compete with the big boys, the Alabamas and Georgias and Ohio States of the world.
And USF has already tasted that kind of success, albeit very briefly, under its very first coach, Jim Leavitt, but couldn’t maintain it. In 2007, the Bulls came out of nowhere to soar to No.2 in the AP poll.
It was, to this point, the most exciting season in South Florida football history. Suddenly, the Bulls were relevant. Not just in Tampa, not just in Florida, but nationally,
With Lakeland native and Lake Gibson grad Matt Grothe leading the way at quarterback, the Bulls went on a six-game run to start the season that they have never come close to matching.
First they beat Elon. Then they beat 13th ranked Auburn in overtime at Auburn, their first win ever over an SEC team. Then they beat North Carolina. Then they beat fifth-ranked West Virginia. Then they beat Florida Atlantic. And then they capped off the six-game run by slaughtering Central Florida, 64-12. That shot them from fifth to second in the AP poll. And then it was over.
Grothe would say later that USF didn’t have the depth to stand up to the pounding it took playing some of the country’s best teams and simply got beat down physically.
And as Golesh looks to the future now, that remains a huge hurdle. It’s what separates Group of 5 teams from the Power 4 conferences and what separates the Alabamas and Georgias and Ohio States and other elite teams from the rest of the Power 4.
But Golesh believes he can get there. First, with the best team in the Group of 5 now guaranteed a place in the College Football Playoff, Golesh doesn’t have to be as good as the country’s elite teams to get a shot at a national championship.
And second, if he can start putting together double digit win seasons, USF will become more attractive to portal players and high school recruits.
They say where there’s a will there’s a way, and Golesh certainly has the will. Now, all he has to do is find a way.
by Patrick Zier | Apr 25, 2025 |
TAMPA-It has been a good spring. There have been ups and downs, there always are, but overall, South Florida Coach Alex Golesh says, it has been a good spring.
“I’m really proud of how far we’ve come so far,” Golesh said after one of his team’s final practices before Saturday’s spring game at Corbett Field here. The game starts at 6 p.m. with a fan fest beginning at four o’clock.
“Our message to the guys after practice was man, we’ve got to go finish and every single day matters,” Golesh said. “Every single day that we get an opportunity to go we’ve got to compete, get better as a program and for us to take the next step its gotta come from within the locker room.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done so far up to this point and our program so far,” Golesh added.
“Our confidence level, you know, I continue to talk about earning confidence,” Golesh remarked. “I think you earn confidence as you continue to perfect the process, continue to improve day-to-day.
“It’s a really confident bunch,” Golesh said of his team. “I think as the leadership continues to grow and you continue to go through hard situations you build confidence. I think it’s really high.
“There’s a bunch of guys out there that are guys we know will contribute and have contributed so I think where we are, you’re seeing a lot of young guys start to gain confidence as they’re making plays,” Golesh went on.
“I think we do a really good job of not looking forward too much. We don’t focus on anything other than what we’re doing today and like I said, that was the message to the team,” Golesh concluded.
Two areas where younger players have had a chance to step up are the offensive line and the secondary. That’s because 12 players missed all of spring practice including some returning veterans in the line and defensive backfield.
“You know I think there have been bright spots at a lot of places,” Golesh said as he continued to assess his team. “I think the offensive line, there’s a handful of guys who are not going through spring practice that have played a ton of snaps for us.
“And seeing the depth and the young guys step up there and develop, that’s been really exciting,” Golesh said. “I think when offensive linemen are out you start to panic; man, can we operate? I think we’ve operated really well.”
The Bulls’ offensive line holds the key to how far this team will go in 2025. “This could be the deepest offensive line room I’ve ever been a part of,” veteran offensive line coach Tyler Hudanick commented on the USF football website.
USF has some solid starters returning including guard Zane Herring, who, along with veterans center Cole best, has missed all of spring practice; tackle Derek Bowman and center Mike Lofton. Cole Skinner and Deonte Bowie are seasoned reserves.
In college football, or football at any level, it’s what’s up front that counts. It doesn’t matter how good your quarterback is, he can’t throw on his back or if he’s constantly got hands in his face or if he’s forced to run for his life.
Running backs can’t explode through the hole and break tackles if there’s no hole to explode through.
So, for USF, having quarterback Byrum Brown back is great because he puts some pop in the offense, but having a veteran offensive line to protect him might be even better.
At any rate, this will all come to an end, or should we say be put on hold until the fall, with Saturday’s spring game.
“It’ll be good for our kids to come out and compete in front of a crowd,” Golesh said. “It’ll be offense versus defense. There are not enough players to split the squad into teams, but we’ll go offense versus defense for four quarters and make it as much like a game as we can.”
And just like this spring has been, it will be good preparation for the real thing. This team will have a lot of hurdles to jump if it is to reach its goals once September rolls around, but it will be ready. It’s prepared to take its best shot.
In the past, that hasn’t been good enough. This year, it might be.
