Right now, Rivals.com has UCF at #65 in the team rankings.  Tell me how O’Leary is supposed to make us a top 10 or even a top 25 team with a #65 class. It’s like trying trying to make the world’s best pizza but you don’t have any pepperoni, mushrooms, sausage, or onions. You need talent. You can over acheive only so far. A great coach might be able to recruit in the 50s and 60s consistently and do well in C-USA. Tulsa comes to mind. But that’s about as well as you can do. If UCF is supposed to be hanging with the big boys eventually, we have GOT to recruit better. We have got to get a coaching staff who can bring in some three and four star guys. I know they don’t all pan out. But enough of them will if you bring enough of them in. If you go back to the last three or four years on rivals, it is no coincidence that the top teams in recruiting are the same teams who wind up in BCS Bowl games. There are some exceptions (Notre Dame). But not many. You recruit well, you play well.

That’s right people. FAU, just started playing football in 2001, now has won TWO bowl games. IN A ROW! Are we supposed to say now that we can’t expect to win bowl games at UCF? First we let USF blow right past us. That was bad enough. Now we have to sit here and watch FAU blow right on by? For those of who don’t think a guy like Phil Fulmer would be interested in coming to UCF, just look at FAU. They are coached by a guy who won a National Title at Miami. He also coached at Louisville and did such a great job the field there is named for him. You never know who might be interested in coaching here. Not if you don’t pursue them.

AND TO ALL A GOOD KNIGHT!!

We have two teams in the top 15 playing. One team is from a place called Boise Idaho. A place where it has probably snowed in July. If not for a line in a famous Lynyrd Skynyrd song, nobody wold have ever heard of it until the Broncos suddenly showed up on the college football scene about a dozen years ago or so. The other school, TCU, was a perennial doormat in a now defunct conference. A conference where the Big 12 took the big boys, C-USA took the little guys. TCU went to C-USA. After a while they got tired of C-USA I guess and joined the Mountain West. Not exactly the PAC-10 but I guess a step up. Now they are hanging with some of the big dogs. Two examples of what UCF could become with the right leadership. When you watch tonight, try to imagine in a year UCF playing in a game like this. It could happen.

If you really want a new coach, consider going to the shop and making a purchase. The money will be used to keep the site running, hold party/rally at a basketball game, fly a banner plane over the stadium at next year’s home opener, etc. if you have a slogan you’d like to have put on a shirt, email it to me. If you have an idea on how the money can be spent to further the cause, you can email that to me too. If a bunch of us are wearing fireoleary shirts and hats around town and to games next season, it’s going to have an effect. If you don’t want to that’s ok. You still feel free to visit. But if you’re thinking about it, go ahead and do it.

Congratualtions to Asante Samuel and Brandon Marshall on their Pro Bowl selections this year. Now someone please explain to me how a school that has produced two Pro Bowl players and several other notable NFL players, cannot manage to stay bowl eligible for two straight years? Any coach who can recruit at all should be able to go into ANY five star recruit’s home, especially a DB or WR and show that kid that if you come to UCF, you will be the next in line. You will be compared to Marshall, Smith, Samuel, Bigby, Culpepper, etc. There is no reason why UCF should be recruiting in the 60s and 70s. UCF should be top 25 year in and year out.

I know I stated earlier that we should not boycott season tickets just to punish the school for not firing O’Leary. However, as the season ticket push will be underway soon, I have to question the wisdom of plunking down hundreds of dollars in this awful economy to go watch bad football. This past season one could buy a pair of tickets for ten bucks on the street before the game. Economics aside though, there is such a thing as getting your money’s worth. Not so much can I afford it, but am I getting what I paid for? When I see UCF run a slant to a guy nobody recognizes in the middle of the season and he takes it to the house, and then they NEVER run that play again, am I getting what I paid for? When they throw pass after pass to a guy who couldn’t catch a cold if you stripped him naked and threw him in an ice filled swimming pool in January, am I gettting what I paid for? When they run up the middle EVERY SINGLE FIRST DOWN PLAY, am I getting what I paid for?

I know I said not to punish the team or root against the team because you don’t agree with who they decide to hire as coach. But also I do not believe we should blindly just hand over our money no matter how bad the product is. If you honestly believe that UCF football tickets are not money well spent, than that’s ok. Just don’t tell people that “I would buy tickets but I’m protesting O’Leary as coach”. Yes I know that’s a fine line. If anyone asks just say, “in this economy, money is tight right now” and leave it at that.

Things are not well at UCF right now. Some say we here at fireoleary.com are only adding to the negative energy surrounding the program. That is not our intention. We believe that UCF football is underachieving right now. We believe that if the University of Central Florida is going to field a football team, then it should strive to be the very best it can be. Here are some things we will pledge not to do at fireoleary.com and we hope all UCF fans will follow.

We will never root against the Knights. On other team’s message boards who are/were in a similar situation, people who claimed to bleed the school colors would openly hope for a loss so as to help hasten the coaches demise. That disgusts me. If your a true fan of the school, you pull for them no matter who is the coach. If O’Leary starts winning games I’ll be glad to come on here and admit I was wrong all along. I don’t have to be right all the time. In fact, I hope it happens that way.

Number two, we will never celebrate a UCF loss for the same reason.

Number three, we will not suggest the boycotting of UCF games. The team needs our support through thick and thin. As a life long fan of the Florida Gators, I’ve been through the thin. Without it, it makes it a bit less satisfying enjoying the thick. After every third quarter, UF fans stand and sing a song called “We are the Boys”. If you’ve never been to a Gator’s home game let me tell you it is the most awesome part of the game. The last line in the song says, “in all kinds of weather, we’ll all stick together, for F-L-O-R-I-D-A”. We need to have that same attitude about UCF. Coaches and players will come and go. But the fans are here for the duration. Which is something the media, and administration need to understand.

Let’s all remember to be diligent in out pursuit of excellence on the field, but also to be classy in how we go about it. We can get out point across without being ugly.

Unfortunately, I don’t. Well that’s not entirely true. Apparently the investigation into the incident with Brandon Davis has revealed that UCF and it’s coaching staff did nothing wrong. Thank God for that. I was not hoping for a different outcome there. Nobody needs that. There is going to be an independent third party investigation. I don’t expect they will find anything either. But it would appear that we will be going into next football season under George O’Leary once again. But hey, this is supposed to be one of those up years so maybe it won’t be bad. It might really liven things up around here too. After all, when UCF is winning a C-USA Championship next year people will be calling for me to shut down the site. That won’t happen. Why?

It won’t happen because in order to prove me wrong, UCF will have to AT LEAST put two consecutive winning seasons together. When that happens, then we can talk. Until then firecoacholeary.com will be running just fine. But we will welcome opinions from everyone here. And as an added bonus we have a free forum here too. You don’t want to pay a subscription fee to talk Knights Football? Don’t. We’ll be here for you. For at least two more years anyway.

Navy, Air Force, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana Tech, Northern Illinois, Rice, Florida Atlantic, Troy, Memphis, Houston, Tulsa, Ball St, Buffalo, NC State, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Central Michigan, East Carolina, North Carolina, South Carolina (what, no West Carolina?), Hawaii, Alaska (just kidding), Colorado State, Fresno State, Boise State, Utah, BYU, UConn, Rutgers, USF, Kentucky.

Find me ONE school on this list that UCF should not be out-recruiting. There is not one school on this list that most people would have guessed would be better than UCF 10-12 years ago. None.  Possible exception of BYU, maybe South Carolina. Still think we don’t need a change?

Web Site Calls For UCF Coach O'Leary's Firing on WFTV.com Channel 9 News

I’m sorry I wasn’t on there to respond to the prissy co-ed who wouldn’t know a draw play from a bra strap. I guess I should check the e-mail more often. No Princess, it’s not ironic that the site is up after A bad season. When should I have put it up? After the Championship? And next time, check your facts before you run off at the mouth. It hasn’t been ONE bad season, it’s been THREE. Three out of five. Do you think other schools put up with three bad seasons out of five? Not if they’re serious about football they don’t. Are we serious about football? I don’t know. I thought we were. We built a new stadium. That looked pretty serious. We built new practice facilities. That looked serious, too. If we are not serious, then maybe someone should have told the people who invested money in the brand new stores, restaurants, and bars adjacent to the new facilities. These people went in there for one reason: to capitalize on the football crowds. What are they supposed to do on Saturdays with a half empty stadium like we had for UAB? Do they get half their money back? What about the season ticket holders? Do we get half our money back? I know with the economy as bad as I’ve ever seen it, I could sure use it.

And no I am not questioning the training methods of the coaching staff. All I want to know is how does this happen not once, but TWICE within a year? It’s happened once at other schools. UF had a player die in practice a few years ago. I understand it does happen once in a great while. But TWICE? The odds of that are like getting hit by lightning twice.

Web Site Calls For UCF Coach O'Leary's Firing on WFTV.com Channel 9 News

You know, it’s really easy for “casual” observers to criticize me for voicing my opinions. They are probably fans of a different school. They probably didn’t go through ALL the heartbreaks of the mid to late 90s. They probably didn’t hear the team’s fans that we almost shocked say things like “UCF is a program on the rise. In ten years they’ll be a National Powerhouse.” They haven’t been here to watch South Florida, SOUTH FLORIDA, a school that did not even HAVE a football team until 1995, blow right past us. And now they are only casually watching as FAU is now going bowling for a second straight year. A feat UCF has yet to accomplish. They think we should just sit here and say nothing while UCF becomes #6 in the state. Let me throw out a couple of numbers at you.

UCF is the 6th largest university in the nation.

There are 68 schools in FBS getting ready for a bowl game.

Are you telling me, the 6th largest school in the nation should not EXPECT to field a top 68 football team? In this state? With our facilities? With our fan base? Is that what I’m supposed to believe?

There are 119 teams in FBS. UCF’s ranking in total offense? 119!! DEAD LAST!! How many schools have fired their coach this year so far? I don’t know. But I do know that EVERY one of them had an offense ranked higher than ours. And it’s not like we play in the SEC or something. Tennessee can at least use that excuse. Auburn can at least use that excuse. UCF plays in Conference USA. Have you ever noticed some of the scores of other C-USA games? There is nothing unusual about seeing C-USA teams score 40 points and LOSING. These are the defenses we play every week. Not exactly the ‘85 Bears here.

If you people are content with a good team every other year, then fine, keep the status quo. But when they call me expecting money for tickets EVERY year and they only give us a good product every OTHER year, yeah I have a problem with that.

View the article on WFTV.com Channel 9

View the video coverage on WFTV.com Channel 9

Congrats to ECU for winning the C-USA Championship. For those who may not have been at Bright House for that Sunday night game, we were leading ECU for most of that game. We ended up losing in OT. That’s how winnable this conference was this year. Just a mediocre offense would have done it. We could easily be looking forward to Jan 2nd insted of looking forward to spring practice. Also congrats to our opponents last year in the title game, Tulsa, for making it back again this year. No every other year tanking going on there. This from a school with fewer than 3,000 undergrad students. Yes, Tulsa is getting prepared for a bowl game too.

I haven’t mentioned the whole Ereck Plancher thing before. Partly because I wasn’t there and don’t know all the facts. Partly because the kid obviously had a defect that the coaches weren’t aware of. Partly because football coaches need to be able to push kids to give that little extra they never knew they had. What happened is a terrible tragedy and I would not wish it on anyone. That doesn’t mean it was anyone’s fault. that doesn’t mean it could have been avoided. But now it has happened again. In a weightlifting session? A kid collapses from dehydration? Excuse me? Don’t these people life weights indoors? Is there not a water fountain available? Are we running a football team or a prison camp? Newsflash George. The season is OVER! It was a miserable failure. So is your answer now to make them sweat until they pass out? This is supposed to accomplish what exactly? Is one lawsuit not enough for you? I thought the NCAA had rules against these kids serving in a year round state of servitude to the football team? The season is OVER! Why are the coaches even allowed to oversee their workouts in the first place? Aren’t there rules against this kind of thing? Is he now trying to land us on probation? O’Leary needs to go.

Please UCF Administration. Act immediately. Hire Tommy Tuberville to be the next coach at UCF before some other school grabs him. There are too many good coaches available right now to stay with the status quo. Tuberville should be called first. if he’s not interested, then call Fulmer. Then Tommy Bowden.