Congratulations to Coach O’Leary and the Knights on a HUGE win on Saturday! We at fireoleary.com will give it one more year (as if we have a choice anyway). If the Knights and Coach O’Leary have a successful season next year, proving they can get off the every other year roller coaster, we will suspend efforts to remove O’Leary as head coach. We will now be rooting like mad for East Carolina to lose tonight to keep the Knights’ conference title hopes alive. Should we win the C-USA East, I will gladly eat my words on George getting us eliminated in September.  Again, congrats to the Knights on beating the first ranked opponent in school history. Now that we all know it can be done, let’s do it again! GO TULSA!

This week will be a perfect opportunity to grade the Knights and O’Leary. We will see whether O’Leary’s style of football can truly succeed in this conference. Houston, a top 15 team, comes to Bright House Stadium. Houston is your typical C-USA team. They have a superb offense, and not much defense. If you saw highlights of their last game against Tulsa, you know what I mean. They scored 10 points in the last 27 seconds to pull out a 46-45 win.  As we all know, UCF couldn’t score 46 points in a month. But, when not playing the #2 team in the nation, it takes a while to score that many on UCF’s defense too. This game is the irresistable force vs. the immovable object.  It will be interesting to see who will have their way. One thing we will know for sure is how UCF will stand after the game. If the Knights win and it’s a low scoring game, then O’Leary can claim that his style CAN succeed in this conference. If Houston wins in a shootout, the naysayers will be able to point out that you must have a high powered offense in this league.  As good as UCF’s defense is, I don’t think we can totlally shut down their offense. We must score some points.

This is it George. Saturday UCF visits Texas. #2 Texas. You want to prove to us that you are the right man for this job? Here’s your chance. I’m not asking you to beat Texas. That’s just silly. Just show some fight. Hang in there and scare them. Show us some of what we saw in the 90s when we went to #1 Nebraska and led them at halftime. Wyoming was leading Texas late in the first half. Show us we’re at least as good as Wyoming.Tell you what George. Beat Texas and the site comes down on Sunday.

What a game!! Congrats to the Knights! Way to hang in there! That game probably just put UCF in a Bowl Game! Unbelievable!

Rivals.com has USF and UCF meeting in the St. Pete Bowl on December 19. That could be a career saver for O’Leary. Or it could possibly be a death blow. To finally win a bowl game AND beat USF would kill two birds with one stone. Away goes two of the biggest criticisms against Coach O. But yet another Bowl loss and yet another against USF, could be a killer. My guess is UCF won’t want any part of that game. Tribble will probably hold out for the GMAC Bowl or Hawaii Bowl. Anything that won’t put us in with USF. He doesn’t want that kind of pressure.

Well somebody in his camp does. I know this for a fact. I’ve been on many “fire-the-coach” websites before. ALL of them use school or team logos on them. Nobody cares. Here’s an example. www.firemarkricht.net 

Notice the “Mad G” at the top? Well I had a UCF logo and got a letter from a law firm out of Atlanta telling me to take it down. So obviously we have ruffled some feathers in the pro O’Leary camp. They notice us. Don’t think they don’t. I preview all of your comments before I allow them on the site. I don’t let all of them on. Some of the ones I don’t I know are from the pro O’Leary side. If they made an argument for him I would post them. But all they do is attack me. This isn’t about me. It’s about George. Whether you know it or not, we are making a difference.  George says he doesn’t read the message boards. But apparently he knows they exist. Maybe if he wants to keep his job for a few more years, we’ve at least lit a fire under his butt. maybe he’ll start recruiting like he wants it. Maybe he’ll coach like he wants it. Whatever it takes to win. If George starts winning, he can stay as far as I’m concerened.

I wish I could have seen it. The games wasn’t on TV anywhere. It wasn’t even on the Bright House Sports channel. You would think the company who’s name is on our stafium could gind a place to put our games on wouldn’t you? It was the best offensive showing since the days of 24K, and nobody saw it. So it’s kind of like that tree falling in the forest. Did it actually happen?

Hmm. Who first suggested that Charlie Strong would be a great fit here? Oh yeah, it was me. Now would he come here? That I’m not so sure. I think Strong wants to coach at a BCS school. I believe he thinks he’s ready to be the head man at a big time program. He  sees what Bob Stoops turned his defensive co-ordinator at Florida into, and thinks he can do the same. Maybe he can. But for every Bob Stoops, there are four or five Charlie Weiss/Ron Zook/Dan Hawkins/Lane Kiffins who have bitten off more than they can chew for their first head coaching gig. If he was smart I think he would like no further than his current boss, Urban Meyer, at how he has made it. His first gig? Bowling Green. He has turned a head coaching job at Bowling Green into being the most successful coach in todays’ game. Or how about up the road? Bobby Bowden? First head coaching gig was Samford.  You are much more likely to be successful when you start out at a smaller profile job. You aren’t expected to come in and turn it around right away. The fan base will be more patient. The media will not scrutinize you as much. And the biggest reason, your competition is not as stiff. Strong may not be interested. But it sure would not hurt to give him the sales pitch.

We’ve got Rice,  Marshall,  Texas,  Houston, Tulane, and UAB. We need to win four of those games to get a bowl bid. At 6-6, we may get passed over. At 7-5, I think we get in.  Marshall, Tulane, And Houston are home games. Marshall and Tulane I feel we should win. Houston will be tough. That leaves Rice, Texas and UAB on the road. Rice should be an easy win. Texas is a definate loss. So it may very well come down to the final game of the season on the road against UAB. Remember last year? Oh boy.

What was the turning point that had UCF going from being a “sleeping giant”. (O’Leary’s words when hired) to a giant in a coma? Someone mentioned “cell phone gate”. That might have been it. I don’t know. But to me it was one horrible decision that has bitten us right in the rear. It was joing the MAC. That decision set us back a good ten years. If you don’t believe it, look at Marshall. They did the same thing. They are now worse than we are. And they used to rule the MAC.

Why did this hurt us so much? Well, for one thing, it gave USF a hole you could drive a truck through. We joined the MAC and they went to C-USA. If you think that’s a wash, then explain why we left the MAC to then join C-USA. And meanwhile, USF leaves C-USA to join the Big East. So in essence, USF got to skip a grade. Who’s bright idea was the MAC anyway? Were they TRYING to kill recruiting? “Come to UCF, son. We play road games in November in Michigan and Ohio.” Uh, no thanks. Think I’ll go to Tampa to school. They’re playing roadies at the Superdome. Or at worst, North Carolina. We have never recovered from that. Heck we couldn’t even win the MAC while we were in it. It’s like somebody turned off the light switch. We thought when we got in that it would be a piece of cake. It was more like a whole fruitcake. With extra nuts.

When I say I’m just glad we didn’t get run out of the stadium by halftime, that only means I’m glad about this particular game. It does however irritate me to no end that our program is in such bad shape that we are debating whether a 20 point loss on our home field is a bad thing or not. Go back to the 90s. When we played the big boys of the world, we scared the daylights out of them. There weren’t too many people beating us by 20 and if they did, we weren’t too happy about it. Our program should be to the point where we are seething at a 20 point loss. Not because we suck, but because we have no business losing by 20. Do you think USF will be happy if they lose to UM by 20? Hell no! That’s why this site is here. Because this mediocrity is not acceptable! But, with what we bring to the table this year, 27-7 is not that bad. It’s not that great, but it’s not that bad. But the fact that a 27-7 loss is not that bad, IS BAD!

I don’t believe in moral victories. A loss is a loss and they all suck. But 27-7 to the #9 team isn’t completely terrible. It could’ve been worse. Hopefully we can win the games we should and get to a bowl.

#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.

Thanks to the policies of “Hope” and “Change”, as of last Friday, I am now unemployed. This will give me a lot of free time to plot and scheme to rid ourselves of one  Mr. O’Leary. Yeah, yeah I should probably be out looking for a job. Priorities people. Priorities.

Kevin Smith: 2 TDs

Mike Walker (Sims-Walker) 2 TDs

Brandon Marshall: An incredible catch and run for a game winning TD.

Do not tell me UCF cannot expect to recruit big time talent and that we should be happy with what we have.

Look at the poll question. Out of the over 7,000 people we’ve had visit this site, 8 people bothered to vote on how they wanted the game to go on Saturday. Four of those voted that they didn’t care anymore. You wonder why half the seats are empty? There you go. It is better to have an angry fan base than one that no longer cares. Once a school no longer cares, it is destined to be a bottom dweller.Look at your power conferences. In the SEC, Kentucky doesn’t care about winning football games. And they don’t. Vanderbilt doesn’t care either. And they don’t. Indiana in the Big 10 doesn’t care either. Look at their records.  In the ACC you have Duke and North Carolina. Not exactly football powers. Once apathy sets in, you are finished.. Apathy typically sets in when years of losing pile up and nothing gets done about it. Or your school starts kicking butt in basketball.

If we want to have a winning football program, we need to get mad. Or be happy with the status quo. Whatever. But to not care is a death blow. If you don’t show up to the games as a protest, that’s fine. But make your voice heard in other ways. Visit the chat rooms. Wear your t-shirts. Take white shoe polish and write on your car windows if you have to. Email the AD and the school president. but do something.

Are you excited? I know we’re only 2-2, but I still get pu,ped for gameday. Especially for home games. And now that October is here and it’s not so hot, it’s even better. Think how great it would be if we had a conference championship to still play for. Oh well. We can still tailgate.

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?