For the UCF football team, this past season was anything but golden, and it had nothing to do with the school’s revised sports moniker. Rather, 2008 was a year marked by an uninspired offense, narrow defeats and a particularly haunting loss back in March. But due to their newly achieved stature as a program of reckoning, ESPN tagged along for the bumpy ride.
On back-to-back Sunday nights in midseason, The Worldwide Leader broadcast a pair of UCF’s more unimpressive losses, then added insult to a wounded program. In fact, this stretch might have been the low point in a season of disenchantment, but it wasn’t all due to the Knights’ performance on the gridiron.
And ESPN was there to highlight all the blemishes. On Oct. 26 UCF was routed 49-19 by then undefeated and No. 19-ranked Tulsa, despite boasting a 19-14 lead at halftime. Then, a week later, UCF lost a heartbreaker in overtime to East Carolina, 13-10.
The mistake-filled game against the Pirates was a yawner, and not just because of the late 8:15 p.m. start time to accommodate the folks at ESPN. The Knights looked lost on offense, scoring just one touchdown on their home field. Unable to hold onto a slim lead as the final minutes ticked down, UCF bowed out quickly in overtime.
UCF’s game plan, as it has been all season, seemed to focus on the inexperience and limitations at the quarterback position, causing Coach George O’Leary to rotate QBs in search of a winning combination.
Both freshman Rob Calabrese and junior Michael Greco, who threw an interception on the Knights’ first possession in overtime, showed more ability running the ball than throwing it. Later on in the year UCF also threw redshirt freshman Joe Weatherford into the mix, but with the same results.
With an offensive line that alternated between poor and porous, the QB’s first instinct is often to run for cover, absorbing most of the cruel and usual punishment doled out to an offense that was sometimes criminal.
The rest of the season played out in much the same manner. From an underwhelming offensive display in a 17-6 Homecoming defeat by Southern Miss to a season-ending 15-0 shutout by last-place UAB at home on Senior Day, UCF football never could gain traction, despite relatively encouraging setbacks early in the year against perennial powers USF (31-24, OT) and Miami (20-14). UCF would finish out the year dead last in offense among the 119 teams in NCAA Division I.
On the radio
All of these deficiencies were in play last
month when the coach showed up for his
weekly live radio show at Buffalo Wild
Wings on Alafaya Trail. But with only lightbeer
pitchers on special, and a lightweight
offense to discuss, there wasn’t much of a
buzz in Knight Knation.
With Marc Daniels, the “Voice of the Knights” on 540 AM (WFLA), dissecting the East Carolina game, O’Leary explained that the lackluster showing was primarily due to a lack of consistency on offense, and the kids were taking it hard.
“It was a tough game, a tough loss, and I would expect them to show some emotion,” he said. “The key to football is execution.” Claude Gerard, who will graduate from UCF this year in interdisciplinary studies, also had some questions of his own.
Why, he wondered, isn’t UCF more aggressive on offense? “We play such a conservative game,” said Gerard, whose fan credentials include missing just three home games in the last 15 years, plus a trip to Hawaii in 2005 to watch the Knights play in its first-ever bowl game. “We need to try something.
Our offense can’t score at all anyway,” he said. Making matters worse, ESPN’s investigative program Outside the Lines aired a report that weekend critical of UCF’s handling of the death of Ereck Plancher, who died during a team workout on March 18. OTL painted an unflattering portrait of a less-than-forthcoming university caught between conflicting statements regarding the length and intensity of the practice session.
The piece also questioned why UCF did not pull the 19-year-old freshman from the workouts as a precaution, knowing that Plancher had the sickle-cell trait, which caused his organs to shut down following the workout, according to the autopsy report. “There’s a lot of things being said that are misleading and not true,” O’Leary responded on his radio show.
He added that, despite the rough going, his football team is resilient and would play better football. But as UCF finished with a record of 4-8 overall and 3-5 in CUSA, the team could not deliver on his promise.
UCF fans, however, proved their own resilience. Sitting in the crowd that night, as they are every Monday night for the call-in radio show, were Lynn and Kimmie Trivett. The Trivetts are not graduates of UCF, and they live in Titusville, but for the last 18 years they have been fixtures of the UCF sports scene, and beyond.
They are season-ticket holders for football, baseball, volleyball, and men’s and women’s basketball. And have not missed a road football game in two years. That includes traveling to such exotic locales this year as Tulsa and El Paso. “We see them as mini-vacations,” Lynn said.
The Trivetts are also associate members of the UCF Alumni Association and belong to the Golden Knight Club. In addition, they are participants in the UCF Learning Institute for Elders, which offers a curriculum designed to stimulate thinking among seniors. “Although we have gray hair, we are students,” he said.
“We try to get involved in everything. It’s just a lot of fun, and a way to stay young.” Aformer NCAAfootball official with the Southern Independent Association, Lynn has refereed games involving Miami, Florida State and UCF. Though he retired from all of that in 1991, he remains the ultimate sports fan. And so is his wife.
“I love it. It is like a family at UCF,” Kimmie said. “And even though it’s such a large school, you get to know people who really care for each other. It’s really at the away games when you see the core people.” And they will never give up on UCF, or their football team. “I’m very supportive of Coach O’Leary,” Lynn said.
“I admired him when he was at Georgia Tech. Around the country he is very well respected.” So while the glaring lights of an ascending football program may sometimes illuminate problems along the way, fans will continue to wear the Black and Gold on their sleeve, and in their hearts.
