Today on Tuck and O’Neill they were interviewing a UCF player. I won’t say who it was but this was the exchange.

O’Neill: Tell us how the team felt after the disappointing loss.

Player: Well, we are disappointed. We played hard, but we didn’t play smart.

Who’s JOB is it to get these players to “play smart”? Who is getting paid millions of dollars to “coach them up”? We are at week 4. And through ALL of last year, and 4 weeks of this year we have made every mistake you can make at least twice. Personal Fouls when you had a team stopped? Check. False starts in short yardage? Oh yeah. DBs horribly out of position? Been there, done that. Costly turnovers? Dozens. Dropped passes? A bushel full. When does “how to play smart” start to kick in? Other teams make this game look easy. We make it look like we’re trying to build the Egyptian Pyramids with a bunch of mules. We can’t execute a five yard slant route? We can’t get a field goal off the ground and pointed in the right direction? We can’t hang on to the ball in the other teams secondary? This has been going on for 16 games!

You guys feel free to start your own threads in the forum. If something is on your mind go ahead and share it. It doesn’t even have to be about O’Leary. Think of this as your own little internet sports bar.

Have a winless season? No, that didn’t do it.

Get embarrassed on National TV? Nope. See ‘06 Pittsburgh. ‘07 USF. ‘08 BC…

Go 4-7 or 4-8 the year following a championship? Uh uh.

Finish DEAD LAST in FBS in total offense? Apparently not.

Have us eliminated from the East race in September? Doesn’t look like it.

Let other schools in our division come into Orlando and sign players like Chris Johnson? Negatory.

Come within a play or two of losing to a FCS school. Nope.

So what exactly would it take to get fired from the head coaching position at UCF?

Once again a game we could have won. #81 makes a great catch on a deep ball and then once again reminded me why I call him “stone hands” by dropping an easy one in the end zone from inside the 10. Next play was a pick. 0 points. The defense once again played very well. Once again the offense lets them down. To be fair, the officiating was awful. I’m watching the game on BHSN and they are using the feed from ECU. On one play their own annoncers were sure they had committed offensive pass interference. Nope. It goes against us. They get a first down inside the 15 and turn it into a TD. Earlier we get a nice run up the middle in their territory and fumble. It looks like we jump on the ball first, but they unpile everybody and an ECU guy comes out with the ball. They give it to ECU. I’m ok with that. That’s football. Anything goes in one of those piles. You bite someone if you have to. Because normally they give it to whoever comes out with it. But a few minutes later, ECU fumbles. Thet pile ensues. We come out with the ball. And they give it to ECU. If George doesn’t get a fine this week for blasting the refs, he should be fired for that.

It’s September 26th and we’re out of it. We’ve watched USF go to Tallahassee and beat Bobby Bowden and watched our chances to win the eastern division of Conference USA evaporate on the same day. Another red letter day for the Knights. We’ve watched USF start up a football program from scratch and 12 years later they are in a BCS league beating FSU while we can’t hang in the C-USA east! We’ve lost two games where we gave up less than 20 points in C-USA! That’s pathetic! If you’re sick of it let’s get this thing going. Tell your friends to come on the site. We’re on facebook and twitter. Go to the shop and buy a t-shirt or a hat.  Wear them to the games. Something needs to be done and it appears it’s up to us. Let’s roll!

Week 4. A must win for the Knights. Wait a minute you say? We still have 8 games to play after this one. How can it be a must win? Well, first off, they’re all must wins. Well maybe not Miami and Texas. But other than that, yes they are. But this week is especially because of the So. Miss loss. In order to win the East if we lose this week USM and ECU would have to lose three games apiece in conference play. This is because UCF would already have two losses plus would lose any tie breakers involving those teams. How many people see both of these teams losing at least three times. And that only helps if we then win all six remaining C-USA games. Lose this week, and we are out of it. And this with 8 games to go.

I have heard a few different times from a few different people that George has a rather unique philosophy. It is that each game is its own season. Hmm. Let’s think about that for a minute. Sounds interesting. Maybe even smart. Once a game is over, move on. We’re 0-0 this week. Don’t worry about last week. Don’t worry about that Miami or Texas game later on either. Worry about this game and this game only.

However, this philosophy can also lead to some of the things I believe plague O’Leary. For instance, GOL’s seemingly defiant  insistence that Calabrese is his starting QB even though he sucked last week. So all of last year and two weeks into this year, we had to sit here and wonder why he keeps getting starts over better QBs. Well it all makes sense now. Last week was last year. This is a new year. Calabrese is the starter. Period. That is how he can start vs. Samford and score 0 points in almost a half, then Hodges comes in and we score 28 the rest of the way, but then next week, Calabrese starts again. On the road. In a C-USA eastern division game. A team we have to get past to get to the Championship game.

You see folks, every game is not a season. Losses hurt. Those are games you don’t get back. You have to learn from them. You can’t pretend they didn’t happen and keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. This musical QB thing didn’t work last year. Why would we think it would this year? Well guess what. It didn’t. And it cost us a very important game. And because of that game, this week’s game has taken on that much more importance. You see that game does have an effect on this one. These games do not stand alone. It’s why we keep records. It’s why we keep stats. It’s why we keep score. We don’t run a play and then say, well that one’s over. Nothing we can do about it now, let’s start over.

We need to start looking at seasons as seasons. We need to have goals. Jerry O’Neill stated that he believes UCF should compete for the Eastern Championship EVERY YEAR!  I agree with that. Our stated goal every year should be to win the C-USA east. If we don’t win it every year, but we are at least in the running until November, we can live with that. But I don’t want to be 2-7 and have GOL tell me that this week’s game is it’s own season and if we win we can all celebrate. No. No we can’t. You wouldn’t be telling us to jump off a cliff if we were 7-2 and then lost in week 10.

28-37. Since winning the C-USA Title game, 6-10. 2 of those wins vs. FCS teams. This year 2-1, 1-1 vs. FBS teams.

Congrats to the team for winning tonight. That was a big one. Since we know Miami and  Texas are losses, at least we will be 2-2 in non conference games.  So this win was big.  Next week would be a huge win. It will even up the conference record and we would have four conference home games left. If we are to win next week, we better cut out some of the stupid mistakes we are still making. Running into the kicker? A delay of game at the goal line? We had two defenders both bite on the out move and had the pass been on target we were looking at being down 24-7. We do these things at ECU, we lose big. So we still have work to do but hey, we won. So let’s be happy.

I know I know, they’re all important. But this week against Buffalo could end up being one of those games that makes the difference between going bowling or staying home at the end of the year.  We already have one loss. Miami and Texas are guaranteed losses. That means we only have three other games we can lose out of the other eight we have left. East Carolina and Houston will both be tough games to win. If this one gets away, then we have to be perfect in the other five games just to be bowl eligible. Bowl eligible at 6-6 in C-USA is not a guaranteed invite. We really need 7 wins to feel good about our chances. So we really need this one.

I’ll be wearing my fireoleary.com shirt. If you’re a GOL apologist and you think you might want to have a confrontation, check and see what the Tennessee Florida score is first. If by some miracle UT wins, I wouldn’t recommend it. If UF wins by 40+, I might buy you a beer.

Yes, I heard your tirade on the radio. Welcome to the dark side. It took you awhile to get here, but the important thing is, you’re here now. Did I spell your name right? Or is it O’Neill? Anyway, thanks for coming to the party, even if you’re a bit late. You said everything on the radio that I’ve been saying for two years now? How can we have such a lack of speed and athleticism when we are smack dab in the middle of the biggest hotbed of high school speedsters and athletes in America? You can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting one. And we have ZERO?? Where are the Brandon Marshalls? The Asante Samuels? The Kevin Smiths? The Mike Walkers? The Joe Burnetts? The Duante Culpeppers? We found those guys somehow without all these fancy new digs. How? And why all of a sudden can’t we now? USF still finds them. Rutgers comes down here and steals them by the boatload. We can’t get one? Not one receiver besides Rocky Ross who can walk and chew gum at the same time?

Jerry, you stated that UCF should compete for, not necessarily win, but come close to winning the eastern division EVERY YEAR! Hmm, where have I heard that before?? Think, think, think,…oh yeah, I remember, …IT WAS ME!! I said it LAST YEAR!! And you ripped me on the air. So do I get an apology now? And you are absolutely right, less than 200 yards of total offense is abysmal. It’s especially disturbing when you play in a conference that doesn’t exactly stress defense. Do you ever check scores of other C-USA games? 38-35 is nothing unusual. And yet we can’t even score a point against UAB on our home field. After the loss to Texas in our home opener in ‘07, our head ball coach stated that he never again would want to walk off our home field as the loser. When will we start holding him accountable for the fact that it now happens ALL THE TIME?? I’m getting a bit sick of it. I’m also getting sick of the man crush he has on Rob Calabrese. I’m sure he’s a nice kid. But we have had a better QB on the roster every single game the kid has been here. Why does he keep getting the reps in practice with the first string? Why does he keep starting? You pull him in the Samford game when we have zero points, and in a little more than a half, Hodges comes in and puts up 28. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?? HELLO, MCFLY!! ANYBODY HOME?? Apparently not because one week later, in a conference game, on the road, there’s ole Rob again. There he is putting up goose eggs. At least for our side anyway. He did manage to fumble 7 points to their side though. How much did we lose by again?

27-37 now. When is enough, enough?

How many people watched that game last night thinking ahead to the Miami UCF game wondering how bad Miami was going to kill us? WOW that game was fun to watch. Maybe the defense was a bit weak but it sure was nice to watch two teams move the ball. I remember when UCF used to do that. Back in the days of Culpepper. Back in the Ryan Schneider. Back when we had weapons like Brandon Marshall, Mike Walker, Alex Haynes, Kevin Smith, etc. What happened to those days? Rocky Ross reminds me of Jimmy Fryzel but that’s about it.  Newsome is the one WR that looks like he could be a weapon but the coaching staff seems determined to use him sparingly. Harvey has potential but he’s no Kevin Smith. But then again who is? The first thing that needs to happen is we need to settle on a QB. If we’re still screwing around by the Miami game, the Canes will crush us.  Look how bad Miami was last year when they had the Marve-Harris thing going on. Now Marve is gone and Harris is the man. Look at them now.

1. Fall for a trick play

2. Throw the easiest pick 6 in recent memory.

3. Get a personal foul penalty for tackling the QB out of bounds when you have them stopped on third down.

4. On a missed field goal get an offsides penalty.

5. Miss two makable field goals.

OK.  Anybody can fall for a trick play. I’ll give you that one. But the rest of that garbage cost us 16 points. Those are types of plays that are the difference between winning easily or winning a nail biter. Or winning a nail biter against a good team and losing. To be a contender, you have to keep those mistakes to a minimum. To be a champion, you have to elimimate them.  Next week we play a team, Southern Miss, that we must beat to get to the C-USA Championship game. It’s a tough road game that UCF will need to play mistake free football to win. From the truckload of mistakes I saw yesterday, that will take a monumental effort.

I guess O’Leary has figured out to fix the every-other-year thing. Now we suck EVERY year. This is pathetic. It’s embarrassing!  FIRE THIS CLOWN NOW!!!

First game of the season. Hope springs eternal. UCF is undefeated and will most likely stay that way at least for a week. Last year we also started that way. We had SC State for the opener at home. Like Samford, a FCS team that stood little chance of winning. However, even after the Knights’ 17-0 win, I got home in a foul mood. My wife asked if we had won. I told her yes. She couldn’t understand why if we won I was in such a bad mood. I told her it was because “if we can’t beat a 1-AA school any more than that, we won’t beat anybody else.” I was not too far off as it turned out. How we look tomorrow will be as important as whether we win. Strike that. It’s MORE important. If we struggle to put together any offense, it will not bode well for the season. There needs to be some points put up tomorrow before we can feel good. At least 30 in my opinion. Any less than that, and I won’t be too happy.