Florida Today: College football History repeats with the rise of USF & UCF

[Knight_Light]

http://www.flatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071011/COLUMNISTS0306/710110335/1065/sports

FLORIDA TODAY

October 11, 2007

Peter Kerasotis

College football History repeats with the rise of the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida

Close your eyes and it is the '70s.

Bell bottoms, platform shoes, disco music. And, oh yeah, two football programs nobody took seriously.

Miami and Florida State.

Goodness, there was a time when administrators at Miami -- which, back in the day, announcers had to distinguish by saying, "Miami of Florida" -- almost shuttered its football program.

Seven national championships and four Heisman Trophy winners later, and it's safe to say UM and FSU have been the country's two most successful college football programs the past quarter century. Not only that, but they've also been the best rivalry in college football during that time.

Open your eyes and it's '07.

Is anybody still not taking the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida seriously?

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http://www.flatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071011/COLUMNISTS0306/710110335/1065/sports

[USF_Grouper]

I definitely agree that UCF is an up-and-coming program with a lot of promise.  That being said, I really get tired of the Orlando media attempting to attach UCF to the coat-tails of USF.  USF has shown that, at least this season, they belong with the other major football programs in the state.  UCF hasn't done anything.

As an on-related aside, I live in Melbourne and Florida Today is probably the most worthless local paper I have read.

[Don Toro]

Why is everybody so high on UCiF? WTF have they done? I didn't know Moral Victories were so important in the college football world.

[TheBullies]

I second the why UCF comment.

They are 0-17 VERSUS RANKED OPPONENTS.

[flsportsfan83]

UCF is lucky that we are so good. most of the National Press about UCF is due to how well USF has done.

UCF is the little bro that wont go play with his own freinds.

USF is BCS

UCF go play with UTEP and Rice.

[usfgrad84]

I guess they are an up and coming team as long as you consider teams that go 4-8...8-5...0-11 over the last three years to be up and coming.  Maybe it is the stellar 3-2 record with wins against two 1-5 teams and a 2-3 team that has the writer so excited.

[DontPushMe]

This is why this series is such a bad thing for us. For some reason the media thinks they need to attach UCF to us as if we are even remotely similar. I cant wait until this series is over and we officially leave them in the dust. The only thing keeping us down as their level is this yearly series with them.

[___ Eats It]

We have more wins over Top 10 teams in the past 3 years as they have wins over BCS teams in their entire existence.

Yeah, I see a similarity...  :

[cayman]

Our problem is we are only one letter different than UCF  If they were called CFU or something the comparison would be less.

I live in dallas and I see people confuse the two all the time.

[mikebeau]

I definitely agree that UCF is an up-and-coming program with a lot of promise.  That being said, I really get tired of the Orlando media attempting to attach UCF to the coat-tails of USF.  USF has shown that, at least this season, they belong with the other major football programs in the state.  UCF hasn't done anything.

As an on-related aside, I live in Melbourne and Florida Today is probably the most worthless local paper I have read.

Are you sure UCF is up and coming?  This sounds like 10 years ago. The last UCF Rise(?) was when they had a great QB in Culpepper.  Is it surprising that they have a good runningback and they are now all of a sudden on the rise?  It looks to me they get one good recruit a decade, and wither away once they're gone.

USF on the other hand has built stronger and stronger TEAMS over the past decade.  You can't name one star on this team.  Just a good(and possible great) TEAM.