UCF Should Give O'Leary One More Year, but Expect Results in 2010

The UCF Knights are going to a bowl game in 2009. It's the third time in the last five years for the Knights and coach George O'Leary to take his team to a post season bowl. Not bad, right. Well, it's not great either. Here's why.

UCF is the largest school in terms of undergraduate enrollment in the state of Florida. Yes that includes Florida, Florida State, South Florida, and Miami. So we are not talking about some "small school" here. The campus is beautiful. It's right in the heart of Orlando, one of the places people work all year to come visit for a week. The facilities are brand new. The new football stadium is barely broken in. That's recruiting plus No. 1.

UCF is in the middle of the best high school football state in America. There is high school football talent as thick as the mosquitoes as dusk. You should be able to recruit at UCF on a bicycle and have a decent team. Recruiting plus No. 2.

The Knights play in Conference USA. The competition is good, but far from great. Plus C-USA has 6 bowl tie ins. Twelve teams, six bowls. Any genius can figure that you only need to be in the upper half of the league to go to a bowl game. Who are the Knights competing with for these bowls?

Well there is Houston, Tulsa, East Carolina, Southern Miss, and Marshall. These programs are usually pretty good. But then there is also Rice, Tulane, UAB, SMU, Memphis, and UTEP. These teams are usually pretty bad. To be in the upper half of this league should be attainable. Recruiting plus No. 3.

The Knights fans are football crazy. This is part of living in Florida. College football is our passion here. We all have grown up watching Florida, Florida State, and Miami win multiple National Titles and Heisman Trophies. It's not that difficult to get your students and locals fired up about your football program.

All you have to do is be competitive and give us a place to tailgate. We'll do the rest. Texas was the first team to visit Bright House Stadium. After that game Mack Brown said "we're done opening new stadiums." I think what he really wanted to say was "we're done visiting UCF." The stadium literally shook when the fans jumped up and down, screaming their heads off. Recruiting plus No. 4.

The NFL is littered with former UCF players. Not just role players, but some of the biggest stars in the game played for UCF. Asante Samuel, Brandon Marshall, Kevin Smith, Mike Sims-Walker, are huge players for their respective teams.

Also guys like Josh Sitton, Atari Bigby, Travis Fisher, Matt Prater, Duante Culpepper, and Joe Burnett can be found on NFL rosters. Most of them start. Quick, how many USF players in the NFL can you name? Recruiting plus No. 5.

So with all this going for him, what would you think George O'Leary's record would be with one regular season game left in year six? If you guessed it's over .500, you'd be wrong. His record is 33-40. So if he can get a win this week against UAB and in the bowl game, his record at UCF is still five games under .500 in six years.

Why is his record so poor? It's because he has yet to put back to back winning seasons together. His first year the Knights went 0-11. The next year, he won several coach of the year awards when they were able to go 8-3 and advance to the C-USA title game.

But then the next year, they fell to 4-8. Then in '07 the Knights again won eight regular season games, then won the C-USA title game before losing the Liberty Bowl. But last year? You guessed it. 4-8 again.

So get excited about this year Knight fans. After all, UCF got it's first win against a ranked opponent in school history. A 37-32 win against Case Keenum and Houston who has wins this year over Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. A win this week and we will also have another eight-win season. So give George another year. But it had better not be another 4-8.