Orlando's Hometown National Champions

[jrs2]

17 hours ago, AndyPok1 said:

I follow these things pretty closely, and this thread is the first I've heard anyone bring up 90s and Aughts records vs P5 teams.  Yes, UCF needs to build more history.  Yes, I think lots of the Knights fans are impatient.  However, I don't agree with the vitriol being sent in their direction.  Your out of context stats mean little.  Especially as a newer program, you're going to accept whatever big school wants you as a cupcake win because you need the money.  What is the record of all the G5 schools that have joined FBS since 1990?  I'd be shocked if anyone has more than 10 wins vs P5 teams.

UCF supporters are the ones blaming the SEC and the Playoff for all of UCF's bid woes.   It's not vitriol; it's facts.   But someone else posted that they don't believe the athletic dept. put enough emphasis on football like they should've years past, and I agree- but that is relevant today.  But that's where I feel there is a major disconnect.  You guys think a 13-0 season wipes that slate clean.  Well, it doesn't.

[aent]

2 hours ago, jrs2 said:

UCF supporters are the ones blaming the SEC and the Playoff for all of UCF's bid woes.   It's not vitriol; it's facts.   But someone else posted that they don't believe the athletic dept. put enough emphasis on football like they should've years past, and I agree- but that is relevant today.  But that's where I feel there is a major disconnect.  You guys think a 13-0 season wipes that slate clean.  Well, it doesn't.

Yeah because usually in sports, when schools are in the  same division, they have some sort of path to the championship, usually by not losing any games at the very least. No other sport works this way. Yes, UCF is a young school, there is no doubt about that. But pointing to a lifetime record of when it was even younger is completely rediculous. UCF has clearly continually improved over the years, even if there were some recent dips. Early on UCF went for those money games, playing the very top teams in the BCS in exchange for a check, without any home games with them, ever. That obviously hurts your record. The school had to build up to become better. Obviously the on campus stadium was critical to its growth. In the 11  years before the stadium while in the FBS, UCF won no conference championships. In the 11 years since, UCF won 5, they won almost every other year (and based on how it looks, they'll have been the conference champions on average every other  year for a decade if they win this year, as they're expected to).  UCF won its conference championships:  2007, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017 So yes, it took some time for UCF to get good. The first decade in the FBS UCF wasn't good at all, and that no doubt really badly hurts the all time statistics.  UCF's first bowl game was in 2005. Since the stadium, they were bowl eligible in 8 of the 11 years. In the same years since UCF opened its stadium, UF was eligible 9 times, so not drastically different. UCF has been reasonably good and competitive for a decade now, minus a few down years. Claiming that needs to extend to hundreds of years is a joke. Once UCF is good for a hundred years, then the argument will be it needs to be good for 200... lol

[spenser1058]

He's applying the UF standard to things. UF joined the SEC in 1932 but it took them 59 years to win their first SEC title (1991.) By the time the Head Ball Coach finally did it, the Gators were a bit of a joke around the league for having never pulled it off. Growing up, a standard part of the repertoire when attending UF games was, "Wait 'til next year!"

Looking around Florida, most of our teams have  made the jump to the teams that were competitive thanks to the hard work and inspiration of a particular person.

At Florida, it was Coach Spurrier that made the leap in the '90's

At FSU, it was Saint Bobby in the late '70's;

At The U, it was Howard Schnellenberger (sp?) in the '80's;

For UCF, it seems to be the arrival of Danny White in this decade.

In all four cases, there were moments of greatness prior to those years but it was at that point when the schools were believed by the public to have arrived and expected to compete in the FBS' top rank on a somewhat regular basis.

The only difference is that the schools prior to UCF had no hard and fast situations keeping them from playing the best teams. UF was already in the SEC; when FSU and Miami were ready, there were still a number of independents to schedule. The case can be made that  not only are there fewer independents today due to the conference realignments but that there are significantly larger disparities in resources today between the haves and have nots due to the conference TV contracts.

Hence, ACC member Pitt regularly receives $27 mil as a result of the ACC's TV activities while UCF makes do with $2 mil from the AAC outside the P5. Given that, it makes the Knights' victories over Big 10 member Maryland, SEC member Auburn and Pitt from the ACC within the past year all the more impressive.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2018 by spenser1058

[spenser1058]

Meanwhile, the Head Ball Coach tells former Tiger coach Les Miles he'll eat grass if the Gators don't beat LSU this weekend:

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/amp/ncaa-division-i-fbs/news/lsu-florida-steve-spurrier-les-miles-bet-eat-grass-wear/os7wkcesofs11e53c8gl4jyeg

From The Sporting News

Edited October 2, 2018 by spenser1058

[spenser1058]

The fix is in and ESPN has begun to anesthetize us to it:

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/ucfs-national-title-chances-according-to-espns-playoff-predictor/amp/

According to ESPN's Playoff Predictor, the Knights have 0.0% chance of making the playoffs.

From Saturday Down South

[spenser1058]

Meanwhile, the Miami Herald believes UCF is likely Florida's best football program:

http://amp.miamiherald.com/sports/college/article219355425.html

[jrs2]

1 hour ago, aent said:

Yeah because usually in sports, when schools are in the  same division, they have some sort of path to the championship, usually by not losing any games at the very least. No other sport works this way. Yes, UCF is a young school, there is no doubt about that. But pointing to a lifetime record of when it was even younger is completely rediculous. UCF has clearly continually improved over the years, even if there were some recent dips. Early on UCF went for those money games, playing the very top teams in the BCS in exchange for a check, without any home games with them, ever. That obviously hurts your record. The school had to build up to become better. Obviously the on campus stadium was critical to its growth. In the 11  years before the stadium while in the FBS, UCF won no conference championships. In the 11 years since, UCF won 5, they won almost every other year (and based on how it looks, they'll have been the conference champions on average every other  year for a decade if they win this year, as they're expected to).  UCF won its conference championships:  2007, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017 So yes, it took some time for UCF to get good. The first decade in the FBS UCF wasn't good at all, and that no doubt really badly hurts the all time statistics.  UCF's first bowl game was in 2005. Since the stadium, they were bowl eligible in 8 of the 11 years. In the same years since UCF opened its stadium, UF was eligible 9 times, so not drastically different. UCF has been reasonably good and competitive for a decade now, minus a few down years. Claiming that needs to extend to hundreds of years is a joke. Once UCF is good for a hundred years, then the argument will be it needs to be good for 200... lol

USF fast tracked  football from birth to 1-A and then a P5 conference within 9 years, while UCF was asleep at the wheel when they should’ve been awake and sober.  UF’s 112yo football program  isn’t even involved in this analysis.  

UCF missed out on golden opportunities that USF took advantage of.  It’s like missing out on advance tickets to a sold out concert, except here, there’s no StubHub to bail you out.   UCF is the pregnant cheerleader who should’ve been on Yaz, who is now demanding that the cheerleading squad change their routine to accommodate ... a pregnant cheerleader.

 It’s not all about UCF and never was.

2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

He's applying the UF standard to things. UF joined the SEC in 1932 but it took them 59 years to win their first SEC title (1991.) By the time the Head Ball Coach finally did it, the Gators were a bit of a joke around the league for having never pulled it off. Growing up, a standard part of the repertoire when attending UF games was, "Wait 'til next year!"

Looking around Florida, most of our teams have  made the jump to the teams that were competitive thanks to the hard work and inspiration of a particular person.

At Florida, it was Coach Spurrier that made the leap in the '90's

At FSU, it was Saint Bobby in the late '70's;

At The U, it was Howard Schnellenberger (sp?) in the '80's;

For UCF, it seems to be the arrival of Danny White in this decade.

In all four cases, there were moments of greatness prior to those years but it was at that point when the schools were believed by the public to have arrived and expected to compete in the FBS' top rank on a somewhat regular basis.

The only difference is that the schools prior to UCF had no hard and fast situations keeping them from playing the best teams. UF was already in the SEC; when FSU and Miami were ready, there were still a number of independents to schedule. The case can be made that  not only are there fewer independents today due to the conference realignments but that there are significantly larger disparities in resources today between the haves and have nots due to the conference TV contracts.

Hence, ACC member Pitt regularly receives $27 mil as a result of the ACC's TV activities while UCF makes do with $2 mil from the AAC outside the P5. Given that, it makes the Knights' victories over Big 10 member Maryland, SEC member Auburn and Pitt from the ACC within the past year all the more impressive.

 

 

Always trying to take jabs at UF.  Spurrier may have taken UF to the next level with national titles in the ‘90’s, but it didn’t start with him.  For example, his 1990 squad was great because of the players already on the squad in 1989.

Pell made UF football great in the ‘80’s.  They had a ton of NFL stars on their rosters, First Team All Americans, First Round draft picks,  finished first in the SEC twice, were recognized by the NYTimes as NC in 1984 and by another wire service in 1985,  finished in the Top 6 three times, finished in the Top 25 another couple of times, ranked in the Top 10 and Top 25 several other years as well, were in classic rivalry big games, went to 7 bowls sans 2 probation years but missed the 1986 invite due to slow start en route to 6-5 with wins over Auburn, UGA, and FSU.  made the cover of SI several times, had a couple of Heisman hopefuls, and made a big name for themselves long before SOS came to town as coach.

Saint Bobby made FSU memorable beginning in 1987 to be exact.  But Howard’s Miracle Miami squad was beaten by UF in 1983, and UF’s 1982 game versus same was featured on the cover of SI because it catapulted UF in the rankings to No.5; that game, plus a victory over the Trojans.  UF’s Cocktail Party game, the, Run Lindsey, Run game, was also featured on the cover of SI in 1980.  UF’s 1985 squad ranked No.1 after beating Auburn with Bo Jackson and made the cover of SI again.  Chris Collinsworth gets drafted by the Bengals and makes the cover of SI as well.

UF’s Neal Anderson became the heir apparent to Sweetness in the NFL, and Emmitt became the NFL’s All Time Leading Rusher and made the cover of SI many many times in the ‘90’s.  Lomas Brown was inducted into the Pro Football hall of Fame from the 1984 squad.  James Jones became Detroit’s featured back prior to Barry.  John L. Williams was a fixture for the Seahawks for several years; Lorenzo Hampton at Miami; Wilbur Marshall was the 1983 Defensive Player of the Year and was a major cog in the ‘85 Bears Super Bowl Shuffle.  Ricky Nattiel was one of the Three Amigos for the Broncos.  Coach Gene Chizik was a player in 1981.  Mike Shannahan was an offensive coach in the early ‘80’s.  Mike Mularky went from career in the NFL as a player to head coach in the NFL.  Kerwin was drafted by Miami and ended up coaching JU.  Louis Oliver with Miami; Trace Armstrong with the Bears; so many more.  Just watch most any NFL game and the name “Florida” followed key players’ names.  

We played against players like Troy Aikman, Jeff George, Jim Kelly, Vinny, Bernie Kosar, Willie Gault, Michael Irvin, Herschel Walker, Bo Jackson, Joey Browner, Deion Sanders, etc... The Gators made a major splash in the ‘80’s and played against the big players with their own big players.  They were by no means irrelevant or unknown.  

Prior to the ‘80’s, and aside from former QB Spurrier who became a head coach in the NFL, so did former QB’s Chan Gailey and Lindy Infante, and they were from the ‘60’s era as well.  There’s way more, but I won’t bore you with the rich history.  Throw in Gatorade while you’re at it.  

[aent]

Just now, jrs2 said:

USF fast tracked  football from birth to 1-A and then a P5 conference within 9 years, while UCF was asleep at the wheel when they should’ve been awake and sober.  UF’s 112yo football program  isn’t even involved in this analysis.  

 UCF missed out on golden opportunities that USF took advantage of.  It’s like missing out on advance tickets to a sold out concert, except here, there’s no StubHub to bail you out.   UCF is the pregnant cheerleader who should’ve been on Yaz, who is now demanding that the cheerleading squad change their routine to accommodate ... a pregnant cheerleader.

 It’s not all about UCF and never was.

I never claimed UCF was the fastest ever, lots of programs have evolved much more quickly, and others have completely fallen apart due to a variety of reasons. Obviously USF and UCF took a different approach at it, and while I no doubt wish UCF pushed its way into a BCS conference when USF did. If you actually look at the reasoning though, its not really UCF's fault (not that it matters), but the state decided at the time to give USF an identical arena to UF so it would not have to be redesigned for basketball, so they ended up with a 10,000 seat arena. The Big East valued that basketball arena as it was no doubt a big basketball conference as well, and basketball facility the state built for UCF was half the size and very poorly equipped in nearly every regard. Given UCF had a really small, crapty basketball arena, and USF had something reasonable, and both schools had no football facilities at the time, USF was given the nod. Obviously since then, UCF has built a new arena along with a football stadium, while USF has not built either (although did renovate their arena). And while USF did evolve through the division/conference rankings really fast, much faster then UCF, the on field performance has been nothing like UCF.

The changes UCF is demanding are not unreasonable: all schools in the division should have a path to the national championship when they are completely undefeated. Thats not demanding anything crazy. UCF fans, for the most part, are not saying their conference should have a guaranteed spot in the playoffs, the popular sentiment is expand the playoffs to 8 teams, give the first 5 slots to the P5 champs, give slot 6 to one of the 5 other conferences, and give slots 7 and 8 to any other undefeated team or otherwise the the next 2 highest ranked teams (or some other variant for the 2 remaining spots, such as my proposal for a play-in game, making it a 10 team playoff). How can you seriously say with a straight face when somebody is saying give some path to the national championships, even if its harder then the other paths those in the privileged conferences take, that is unreasonable?

And obviously even the NCAA felt that UCF did earn a national championship last year, and is not being unreasonable in that, since they printed it in their record books. Which really shows who is being unreasonable here.

[spenser1058]

This reminds me of the argument the fundies kept throwing at the LGBTQ community - that we wanted "special rights" when in fact all we wanted was the same rights everyone else had.

Thankfully, SCOTUS agreed with us. Looks like it may be back to the courts again.

I keep thinking of Paul Finebaum, chief apologist for the SEC on ESPN. He was asked what the path was for a school like UCF. He smiled, smugly, saying if UCF went undefeated in 2018 as well we'd deserve a seat at the table. He said it with a confidence such a thing would never happen.

Here we are again and, lo and behold, it might actually happen. And the powers that be are wetting their pants.

[jrs2]

10 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

This reminds me of the argument the fundies kept throwing at the LGBTQ community - that we wanted "special rights" when in fact all we wanted was the same rights everyone else had.

Thankfully, SCOTUS agreed with us. Looks like it may be back to the courts again.

I keep thinking of Paul Finebaum, chief apologist for the SEC on ESPN. He was asked what the path was for a school like UCF. He smiled, smugly, saying if UCF went undefeated in 2018 as well we'd deserve a seat at the table. He said it with a confidence such a thing would never happen.

Here we are again and, lo and behold, it might actually happen. And the powers that be are wetting their pants.

Ah, you’re applying a politics or a political type of analysis to this, and that just doesn’t apply in college football.  It’s not about a minority’s rights.

10 hours ago, aent said:

I never claimed UCF was the fastest ever, lots of programs have evolved much more quickly, and others have completely fallen apart due to a variety of reasons. Obviously USF and UCF took a different approach at it, and while I no doubt wish UCF pushed its way into a BCS conference when USF did. If you actually look at the reasoning though, its not really UCF's fault (not that it matters), but the state decided at the time to give USF an identical arena to UF so it would not have to be redesigned for basketball, so they ended up with a 10,000 seat arena. The Big East valued that basketball arena as it was no doubt a big basketball conference as well, and basketball facility the state built for UCF was half the size and very poorly equipped in nearly every regard. Given UCF had a really small, crapty basketball arena, and USF had something reasonable, and both schools had no football facilities at the time, USF was given the nod. Obviously since then, UCF has built a new arena along with a football stadium, while USF has not built either (although did renovate their arena). And while USF did evolve through the division/conference rankings really fast, much faster then UCF, the on field performance has been nothing like UCF.

The changes UCF is demanding are not unreasonable: all schools in the division should have a path to the national championship when they are completely undefeated. Thats not demanding anything crazy. UCF fans, for the most part, are not saying their conference should have a guaranteed spot in the playoffs, the popular sentiment is expand the playoffs to 8 teams, give the first 5 slots to the P5 champs, give slot 6 to one of the 5 other conferences, and give slots 7 and 8 to any other undefeated team or otherwise the the next 2 highest ranked teams (or some other variant for the 2 remaining spots, such as my proposal for a play-in game, making it a 10 team playoff). How can you seriously say with a straight face when somebody is saying give some path to the national championships, even if its harder then the other paths those in the privileged conferences take, that is unreasonable?

And obviously even the NCAA felt that UCF did earn a national championship last year, and is not being unreasonable in that, since they printed it in their record books. Which really shows who is being unreasonable here.

They couldn’t play big games against Syracuse at Amway Center?  Sure they could.

Look, I click on YouTube to look up Gator post game interviews and press conferences.  But who’s commercials pop up?  UCF’s.  That’s just retarded.  But anyway...  And what’s their message?  “Wow...it’s big...”. That’s it? That’s why UCF wasn’t considered for the Big East.  Because while USF posts all of there accolades on their information page, UCF doesn’t have any to post or they would.  And does UCF really think they’ll lure a Gator to UCF by targeting that audience on YouTube?  That’s ridiculous if they do. They’re  just wasting money.

I don’t make those decisions about a path to the NC.  The path to the NC has always been the same since 1930’s when the AP Poll first began.  But UCF always had the same path opportunity to the NC and blew it b/c the administration didn’t care enough and now they want to be bailed out of bad school focuses on academics and athletics of the past, and claim to be victims of the system.  Well, they’re victims of themselves.  It’s true and USF’s existence proves it.

I’m not trying to be antagonistic here; I’m trying to  help you guys to keep this in perspective.  Blame your own school administration, not the NCAA.

[spenser1058]

While attendance at college football games has been declining for a few years generally, it's been surging at the Bounce House.

Right now, announced attendance at Spectrum Stadium is running just about 99% of capacity, according to the Sentinel:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/ucf-knights/knights-notepad/os-sp-ucf-football-notes-0929-story,amp.html

As Andy points out, that doesn't mean all the seats are actually full, just that the seats were paid for by someone or included in the student athletic fees in the case of the college kids.

It's also important to note that none of the games yet have been against a rival team or a ranked one. Casual fans probably didn't think much about playing Lane Kiffin's Owls or the significance about playing Pitt because they are a P5 team, but still they came.

So.... how long until we think about expansion? Do we wait for a possible downturn after KZ graduates or a dud pick by Danny White once the P5 poaches Coach Heup? Is UCF too preoccupied with the downtown campus and the Colbourn Hall accounting scandal to even ponder additional capital spending?

Once the process begins, how long should the timeline be? Should we go for the lowest bid again or build a stadium Knights can be proud of and ostensibly one that will have a longer shelf life? Do we simply add on to the Bounce House , resulting in a Citrus Bowl mashup that looks as though it were constructed of Tinkertoys through its various iterations?

 

Edited October 3, 2018 by spenser1058

[aent]

2 hours ago, jrs2 said:

They couldn’t play big games against Syracuse at Amway Center?  Sure they could.

Look, I click on YouTube to look up Gator post game interviews and press conferences.  But who’s commercials pop up?  UCF’s.  That’s just retarded.  But anyway...  And what’s their message?  “Wow...it’s big...”. That’s it? That’s why UCF wasn’t considered for the Big East.  Because while USF posts all of there accolades on their information page, UCF doesn’t have any to post or they would.  And does UCF really think they’ll lure a Gator to UCF by targeting that audience on YouTube?  That’s ridiculous if they do. They’re  just wasting money.

I don’t make those decisions about a path to the NC.  The path to the NC has always been the same since 1930’s when the AP Poll first began.  But UCF always had the same path opportunity to the NC and blew it b/c the administration didn’t care enough and now they want to be bailed out of bad school focuses on academics and athletics of the past, and claim to be victims of the system.  Well, they’re victims of themselves.  It’s true and USF’s existence proves it.

I’m not trying to be antagonistic here; I’m trying to  help you guys to keep this in perspective.  Blame your own school administration, not the NCAA.

No, they couldn't play big games for Syracuse at the Amway Center, it was not built at the time. And they couldn't play at the previous Magic arena either because the Big East wanted the schools to have arenas of generally around 10,000 seats (unless they're filling up more). While both UCF and USF weren't doing well in basketball attendance, USF at least had the capability in their on campus arena, and that generally is believed to be the main reason they picked USF over UCF.  And speaking of who blew it, UCF had one year in the Big East/AAC as a BCS conference, and took it all the way, winning not only the conference, but also winning their BCS game in the first and only year in it. USF never actually performed on the field. And while USF did get the BCS money while UCF didn't, they really don't have anything to show for it: no championships, generally worse facilities then UCF, etc.

 

1 hour ago, spenser1058 said:

Once the process begins, how long should the timeline be? Should we go for the lowest bid again or build a stadium Knights can be proud of and ostensibly one that will have a longer shelf life? Do we simply add on to the Bounce House , resulting in a Citrus Bowl mashup that looks as though it were constructed of Tinkertoys through its various iterations?

 

I think the Citrus Bowl was just poorly built. FSU used similiar materials and methods to build their stadium and it no doubt is really well respected place in architecture and otherwise. I do think the future of all sports is going to be to continue to make sure its much more comfortable for the paying fans... the bench seats and no amenities of the past are going to encourage people to stay home and watch on TV, so I hope UCF does make sure all future additions are built to a much higher standard, even if its smaller sections and takes longer to complete. I don't see it as necessary to have enough seats for the demand for the most desired game, let it sell out and increase prices for it. MLS realized they needed soccer specific stadiums with the capacities matching what they can typically nearly sell out and I think they're right on that. Just as sticking UCF in the Amway Center with 20,000 seats with 2,000 in attendance a few decades ago would have been terrible for the program, doing the 20,000 seat addition to the UCF Stadium as originally proposed when we aren't consistently selling out the existing 45,000 seats seems like a terrible idea to me.

[HankStrong]

This has certainly become a depressing thread.

[spenser1058]

5 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

This has certainly become a depressing thread.

Or do you just miss the Horseshoe? *giggles*

[jrs2]

2 hours ago, aent said:

No, they couldn't play big games for Syracuse at the Amway Center, it was not built at the time. And they couldn't play at the previous Magic arena either because the Big East wanted the schools to have arenas of generally around 10,000 seats (unless they're filling up more). While both UCF and USF weren't doing well in basketball attendance, USF at least had the capability in their on campus arena, and that generally is believed to be the main reason they picked USF over UCF.  And speaking of who blew it, UCF had one year in the Big East/AAC as a BCS conference, and took it all the way, winning not only the conference, but also winning their BCS game in the first and only year in it. USF never actually performed on the field. And while USF did get the BCS money while UCF didn't, they really don't have anything to show for it: no championships, generally worse facilities then UCF, etc.

 

I think the Citrus Bowl was just poorly built. FSU used similiar materials and methods to build their stadium and it no doubt is really well respected place in architecture and otherwise. I do think the future of all sports is going to be to continue to make sure its much more comfortable for the paying fans... the bench seats and no amenities of the past are going to encourage people to stay home and watch on TV, so I hope UCF does make sure all future additions are built to a much higher standard, even if its smaller sections and takes longer to complete. I don't see it as necessary to have enough seats for the demand for the most desired game, let it sell out and increase prices for it. MLS realized they needed soccer specific stadiums with the capacities matching what they can typically nearly sell out and I think they're right on that. Just as sticking UCF in the Amway Center with 20,000 seats with 2,000 in attendance a few decades ago would have been terrible for the program, doing the 20,000 seat addition to the UCF Stadium as originally proposed when we aren't consistently selling out the existing 45,000 seats seems like a terrible idea to me.

Hey, I don't want any bad blood here.  Great season and best of luck moving forward.

 

[spenser1058]

Wondering how Coach Heup is doing paywise compared to other FBS coaches? Here's the list from USA Today:

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/

He's #69, which puts him fourth in the AAC (behind Memphis, Navy and Cincy.)

[spenser1058]

After a season last year when just about all of the team's star players were sidelined with injuries, the Knights' men's hoops team is healthy so far and ready to go.

Hopefully, there will be something to look forward to at the CFE Arena when things are done  at the Bounce House.

UCF basketball players open preseason healthy, eager to win after rough 2017-18 campaign
http://bit.ly/2P4CQqt

From the Sentinel

[spenser1058]

Who knew? While Coach Heup has mentioned several times how happy he is with student attendance at the Bounce House, apparently things are different in Tuscaloosa. Nick Saban ain't happy!

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24886323/nick-saban-sounds-alabama-students-not-showing-louisiana-lafayette-game?platform=amp

From ESPN

[bqknight]

On 10/3/2018 at 10:40 AM, spenser1058 said:

So.... how long until we think about expansion? Do we wait for a possible downturn after KZ graduates or a dud pick by Danny White once the P5 poaches Coach Heup? Is UCF too preoccupied with the downtown campus and the Colbourn Hall accounting scandal to even ponder additional capital spending?

Once the process begins, how long should the timeline be? Should we go for the lowest bid again or build a stadium Knights can be proud of and ostensibly one that will have a longer shelf life? Do we simply add on to the Bounce House , resulting in a Citrus Bowl mashup that looks as though it were constructed of Tinkertoys through its various iterations?

 

I'd prefer them not to expand but rather improve what we currently have. It's a hard sell still in AAC, this weekend's SMU game looks like attendance may not be great. 3 home games in a row and a team that doesn't have a brand name equals less people, no matter how well you're doing. If we get into a P5 conference, you'll see the stadium expanded.

Danny White has actually been decreasing stadium capacity in favor of premium seating and it's been working well. While the Tower Club may be too expensive for some people, the Cabana is a big hit. I think we'll see the continuation of Cabana like seating in the coming years. 

Some facade improvements would also be nice. They have started that with the construction of some buildings around the stadium. 

[spenser1058]

Will The Swamp be full Saturday? The Gators expect their first sellout in almost 3 years tomorrow as they take on LSU.

The game starts at 3:30pm on CBS followed by the Knights on ESPNU at 7:00. Oooh, hours and hours of football!

http://bit.ly/2Oa8oPt

From the Sentinel

 

 

 

 

http://bit.ly/2Oa8oPt

[spenser1058]

Let's all watch jrs2 do a huge dance around the room as the Gators get a huge win (27-19) over #5 LSU in The Swamp. Great job that's sure to shake up the rankings tomorrow.

[spenser1058]

Meanwhile, #17 Miami hangs on for the win against unranked FSU 28-27.

[spenser1058]

Our Hometown National Champions make it 18 wins in a row defeating SMU 48-20. 

Charge On!

[spenser1058]

Special note to our Ohio State fans: it might be a good idea to tell your head coach it's best to avoid collisions with staffers on the sideline...

[spenser1058]

Another plus for the Gators: Miss State, who UF beat last week, defeated Auburn 23-9.

That should also be good news for UCF since Auburn ranked above them.