#74. That is where rivals.com has UCF ranked. #74 in the nation. How can we expect to be a player in college football consistently, if we can’t recruit better than that? #74? There are six “BCS” conferences. If you add all those schools up, that comes to 66. Some of those schools are Duke, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Baylor, Washington State,Syracuse, Stanford, and Northwestern. Those teams, we should be out-recruiting. If UCF could recruit in the top 50, we would rule Conference USA every year. So why aren’t we? Is it the weather here? Doubt it. Is it our facilities? Yeah right. Is it our stadium? No. Is it a lack of local high school talent? Please. Is it because our coaching staff is being outworked? Hmmm.
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October 15th, 2009 at 10:00 am
It comes down to being a winning school and horrible recruiting. If you’re a high school football star, not only do you want to play for a winner, you have hopes of making it to the NFL. Obviously UCF is not a winning school. We have 1 conference championship in a weak conference. That isn’t getting you TV time or noticed by anyone, which brings me to my next point. The NFL has a good deal of players from UCF, but you would never know it. I’ve watched 3 Denver games this year, and I’ve heard “Central Florida” mentioned once in reference to Matt Prater. I’d be willing to bet that more people know that Tony Romo came from Eastern Illinois than where Brandon Marshall played. Earlier in the season I watched a Monday night game with Green Bay. They did the player introductions where the players say their name and what school they went to. Atari Bigbi said his high school. The great players that have come through UCF are accidents. They are 2 and 3 star recruits that played well beyond what they were thought to be. Kevin Smith played DB his last year of high school. If schools like UF, Texas, and Alabama knew what kind of running back he would be, UCF wouldn’t have stood a chance in recruiting him. The great Dante came to UCF because UF didn’t want to deal with his off the field baggage. A high school football star doesn’t want to play for a crusty old coach too set in his ways. O’Leary has been here since 2004, and this is the first season I’ve seen even an attempt at using the TE as more than a blocker.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Whether or not these guys came here by “accident”, UCF should be getting some serious mileage out of these guys. How many USF stars are there in the league? Every time you turn on the TV on Sunday, a UCF guy is doing something great. Mike Walker is now the Jags go to receiver. Brandon Marshall is just ridiculous. Prater kicks a game winner to down the Pats. Kevin Smith is Detroit’s feature back and now Culpepper is the starting QB. If not for a BS roughing the passer call last week, they may have upset the defending champs. I’m not saying we get all the stars away from Florida or Miami. But with all this “street cred” we should not be afraid to recruit any player no matter how many stars are by his name. If we had a coach that would go out and do this, we would get a couple.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d8136dce7&template=with-video-with-comments&confirm=true
Maybe we can do something like this on the digital billboard on colonial and alafaya? I’ll donate a dollar or 2?
October 15th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Hey, man this is your fellow season ticket holder who sits behind you at the games or at least did last year, where have you gone? Man I agree whole-heartedly with you this imposter for a coach has to go before he totally ruins this school forever or it’s too late for our school to ever recover. He is slowly killing what little excitement and creditability we have. Coach O’leary is worst than the slow death, but what if anything can we do? Given the current economic environment that UCF is operating under, I just don’t see how they could possibly justify paying off the remainder off his guaranteed 5 million dollar contact, not when the school is laying off professors, cutting classes, dropping programs, and raising tuition and fees. Unfortunately, we’re caught between a rock and a hard play with our backs against the wall. How can we gain the support of the athletic director or University President. Many of us are frustrated beyond belief sitting in stands watching the same 13 unsuccessful plays week after week, month after month, year after year, so much that everyone and every opposing team’s defense knows is coming. Yes we have a new offensive coordinator, but h seems to be new with the same off play book, I swear if I see one more unsuccessful off tackle dive left dive right for no gain and usually a 1 or 2 yard loss I will scream. That play has not worked since Kevin Smith left and was not that successful when he ran it.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Tony. I was at the Buffalo game and went up to my old seats but you weren’t there. I’ll make it back over for the Marshall game. Something came up this week so I won’t be able to make it. I didn’t renew the season tickets because of the economy tanking. I got laid off a couple of weeks ago. Plus I didn’t see where the team was doing enough to warrant me rewarding them by locking in to every game this season. And it’s not like the place isn’t half empty so if I go on gameday, I’m getting in.
I know what you mean about the money. But does the football program make a profit? I know at Florida it does. People who complained about Urban Meter getting a raise while UF was cutting classes were put in their place real quick. The football program not only pays for itself, it funds the entire athletic dept with money still left over to chip in on academics. I’m wondering if UCF’s football program at least pays for itself with enough leftover to get rid of George and hire a real coach. Does anyone have the numbers?
October 16th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Tony, I agree with you completely. UCF football is in a dangerous place. I remember the days of an empty Citrus Bowl where students went to tail gate and didn’t even bother staying for the game. The excitement of a new stadium and facilities on campus is all but gone. I’ve been to 2 games this year (1 away), and I went to 2 games last year (both home). The few die hard fans were still there, but you could see a lot of empty seats, and I couldn’t help but think we’re headed backwards as a program. Had the team been successful over the past couple of years, I believe that stadium would be packed. As much as I hate USF, and I can’t convey through words my level of hate, their fans packed Raymond James Stadium for last night’s game against Cincinnati. Their program has had decent success over the past couple of years. Their record hasn’t been stellar, but they’ve beaten some good teams which got them noticed. UCF could easily achieve the same success USF has. We have Miami and Texas on the schedule this year. Wins against those two would open a lot of eyes to UCF, but I won’t hold my breath. You can’t recruit #74 in the nation and expect to compete against programs like that. I tried to do a little research on what kind of profit the football program makes, but I came up with nothing. You figure that has to be public record since it’s a public school. In my research I did find the number of Knights currently in the NFL. That number is 19. Boise State who is currently ranked 5th in the nation only has 12.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Anonymous. Not a bad idea. Or maybe a banner plane to fly over during a game.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Hank. It’s not only that we have 19, but a lot of those guys are among the best in the game. You won’t find a better WR in the league than Marshall. There a some just as good, but none better. Hard to find a better DB than Samuel. Smith is one of the better RBs. Who does Boise have? Or USF? Or TCU? Or Utah? We should be able to recruit good RBs to UCF every year. With most of the big boys going to the spread, the pro type RBs are finding it hard to get offers now. That’s why USC has stockpiles of them. You go to a 235 lb RB’s house and show him 24k video, how can he not at least think long and hard about UCF?
October 16th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I’ll tell you how he won’t think about it at all… George O’Leary. We’re all biased towards UCF, and we look at the facilities, school, area, and UCF players in the NFL. Take a step back and look at it from the view of a high school star looking to take his game to the next level. You have a school (UCF) recruiting you that’s in a conference you really know nothing about. You don’t know the majority of the schools in the conference, and the school recruiting you has only won it once. You don’t know a lot about the coach, but what you do know is that he was fired from Notre Dame for lying, and a player died during practice (not placing blame on any UCF personnel, just that it happened, so it’s on your mind). Sure there are a good amount of NFL players that came from the school, but you just won a state championship, or at least won a decent amount of games and made it to the state playoffs. You want to play for a team that has the potential of going somewhere. You have another school (USF) recruiting you that has been ranked the past couple of seasons, plays in a BCS conference, and is definitely going places. Their coach is credited with building the program from absolutely nothing to the decent program it is today (one that is VERY hated by certain UCF fans). If I didn’t know a thing about either school (which I really didn’t when I played ball in high school), I would have gone with USF. Until O’Leary is gone, we’re not going to get the recruits we should be getting, and we’re not going to be winning the games we should be winning.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Class of ’93
Season Ticket Holder
The ONLY reason that UCF is not the Boise State of C-USA is the head coach and his out dated ways. Kids today come from the school of WIIFM “Whats in it for me?”. Hihgschool athletes want to play for a champion and O’leary is not a champion. Kids look at the school, the team, and believe it or not the uniform. Do they picture themselves wearing the uniform?
There is Absolutely no reason why UCF cannot recruit kids to play for a C-USA championship with all of the talented athletes in Central Florida, Florida and the country. But, there has to be changes.
Change #1 – Fire O’Leary and Hire Charlie Strong away from Florida. He is due the chance to be a head coach and his is a proven recruiter and champion.
Change #2 – Bring the BLACK back to the colors. We are Black & Gold and not Gold & White. I remember the days of the team entering the stadium to AC/DCs “Back in Black”. Black is a “Bad Ass” color and football players want to look “Bad Ass”. Create a color scheme that youngsters want to wear and this creates a youth base for the future.
Change #3 – Let the kids put their names on their jerseys – again WIIFM – Athletes want to see their names on their jerseys – PRIDE of being a college athlete.
The school needs to move quickly before the fan base is loss. We need to create buzz for BCS conferences to take notice. Hell, we are the 3rd largest university in the country and no reason why we should allow USF to out pace us in college football.
October 18th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
definitely bring back the black