Seems like we were closer to Omaha when Pope and Arnold were pitching at this place. Better teams back then. The only major program that’s stagnated over time. Every year it’s some bologna excuse. Zzzzz*

Gus said on Thursday they were almost done, but not quite. This is a strong possibility for a late addition. He was listed as a defensive recruit in high school, but UGA recruited him as a center and they are very deep there. UCF lacks a true backup center behind Matt Lee. Incoming signee Caden Kitler will compete there though.

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To those that serve or have served...Thank you! Just curious, how many vets do we have here?

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The 2023-2024 CFB season will likely be UCF's inaugural Big 12 season. In 2015, the Big 12 announced they would be requiring its teams to play at least one non-conference game against an autonomy conference institution (ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC, plus Notre Dame). UCF does not currently have a P5 non-conference opponent scheduled for 2023, 2026, or 2029.

The pickings look slim but here are some P5 teams with openings in 2023 and beyond:

Northwestern has an opening in 2023 and no games scheduled for 2028 at all. A home and home for 2023 and 2028 seems possible assuming Northwestern is comfortable playing two non-conference P5 teams in 2023 (Duke/UCF). They last played two non-conference P5 opponents in a single season in 2018 (Duke/Notre Dame).

Miami has an opening in 2023 and 2029. Frankly not sure how likely Miami scheduling a home and home with UCF is.

Virginia has an opening in 2023 and openings in 2027/2029/2030. They seem like a logical partner since they needs plenty of games like we do. That being said the fact that they aren't already on the schedule by now maybe indicates they're not interested?

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Possible BYU/Cincinnati 2023 cancellations:
BYU and Cincinnati will both need to cancel 2023 non-conference games if the Big 12 does in fact play nine conference games, creating opportunities for UCF to fill in for them.

BYU currently has games scheduled against Tennessee, Arkansas, Southern Utah, and Utah State in 2023. They will need to cancel one of these games. The Tennessee game is a home opening marquee game for BYU, so that one is probably safe. If the Arkansas game gets cancelled then perhaps UCF fills in and schedules an additional game for Arkansas' openings in 2026/2027/2028/2029.

Cincinnati has non-conference games scheduled in 2023 against Pitt, NC State, Eastern Kentucky, Miami (Ohio). Pitt seems like the more attractive game here for Cincinnati, so that game is likely safe. Assuming the NC State game gets cancelled we can fill in. NC State has openings in 2026/2027/2029. Scheduling an additional game with them in 2027 could be fun because it'd mean we would play them and North Carolina in the same year. North Carolina state championship could be up for grabs?

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These aren't all the remaining openings for 2023, but there aren't many more. Most of the other programs with openings I left off already had multiple P5's scheduled in 2023 or were teams that don't seem likely to play multiple P5's anyways. So what out of conference P5 program is UCF going to play in 2023? Will scheduling teams finally be easier for us now that teams don't have to worry about losing to a lowly G5 or do we still have a stigma?

Emmert came to the NCAA job in 2010 after turns as president of the University of Washington and chancellor at Louisiana State University. His background was in academia, but he was familiar with athletics, having lured Nick Saban to Baton Rouge in 1999. This was seen as an advantage as the NCAA worked to quash academic scandals and shore up graduation rates.

Many described Emmert as brilliant, but that same quality may have also turned college administrators against him. They say that conversations with the president left them with the impression that he felt he was the smartest person in the room and knew better than them in dealing with the reality of college sports on the ground.

This only magnified as the NCAA became mired in costly litigation—most notably the landmark case brought by former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon that ultimately cracked the door open for college athletes to gain ownership of their name, image and likeness rights years later.

Although the NCAA could have issued national guidelines on name, image and likeness in the spring of 2021, Emmert waited for a ruling on the Alston case. In June 2021, the Supreme Court handed the NCAA a resounding 9-0 loss. The opinion backed the NCAA into a corner with one suboptimal way out: beg Congress to intervene on their behalf.

“I don’t know of an industry, I don’t know of a corporation, I don’t know of a nonprofit anywhere who says ‘Let’s just turn it over to Congress to regulate us,’” said Arne Duncan, co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, an advocacy group that aims to reform inequities in college sports, and former U.S. Secretary of Education. “Congress only steps in when they see dysfunction or a lack of leadership.”

Several bills related to athletes rights have been introduced in Congress, but none have gained meaningful momentum in the last 10 months as politicians navigated Covid-19 surges, economic uncertainty and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finally in New Orleans, Emmert publicly acknowledged that he might be part of the NCAA’s problem.

Another .500 regular season under Lovelady.

Thoughts?

Arizona media:

Mikey Keene’s sparking two-year, 23-0 record as Chandler High’s starting quarterback was capped with back-to-back Open Division Championships, including a win over rival Hamilton to close out his prep career in late 2020.

After early enrolling at the University of Central Florida in January of ’21, Keene was pressed into action as a true freshman last fall, leading the Knights to a 9-4 record and win over in-state power Florida in the Gasparilla Bowl. In 11 games (10 starts), he completed 173-272 for 1,730 yards and 18 total touchdowns. He was intercepted just six times and had a passer rating of 133.20.

Earlier this week, Keene sat down with the “Zone Read” to catch up on a myriad of topics, both on, and off, the field.

Due to COVID, you never took an official visit to UCF, and committed site unseen. Now that you’ve been there for over a year, how are you enjoying your time on campus and the Orlando area?

“Getting here a semester early was crucial to me. Adjusting to college and the things I needed to – being away from my family, getting acclimated to college, the school, and the time management. That was a crucial time for me being able to adapt and just focus on football because that’s why I’m here: to be able to excel at football and get my education, as well, and to be the best person I can be and set myself up for a great career. UCF has been great for me. I feel like the culture here is very similar to the culture at Chandler [High]. It’s a melting pot of ethnicities. I’ve been able to make a lot of connections and it’s a great place for me.”

Have you been to Disney World yet?

“I have, yes. I went my first two weeks of being here and then, last semester, I got to go with some of my friends. I’m trying to go back this summer.”

Do you have a favorite ride?

"I’m a huge Disney fan. I’ve watched all the Disney Plus shows. I’ve always been sort of a Disney nerd. I love Magic Kingdom. Space Mountain is probably my favorite ride.”

More:

From the Sons of UCF: Hear from UCF Baseball Head Coach Greg Lovelady following the Knights 9-6 loss to Houston, knocking UCF out of the AAC Championship in Clearwater. UCF finishes the season at 35-25.

Click here to listen and thanks for subscribing to the Sons of UCF YouTube Channel.

BYU:

The complex shares some infrastructure with baseball.





Houston:



Texas Tech:





Baylor:



Oklahoma State:





Kansas:





Iowa State:





Texas:





Oklahoma:





UCF:



Cincinnati, TCU, West Virginia and Kansas State do not play softball.

Login to view embedded media Didn’t see this coming.

Login to view embedded media Most off-season thing ever!! Haha

Terrence Lewis and Kris Moll in the 2 LB set.

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Ok guys, my Home Owners Insurance is due at the end of this month.

I remember reading a long thread dealing with this subject matter.

Could I get some help locating that thread Please?



My insurance jumped by $600.00.


I checked with USAA and they actually want $700.00 more then my new rate.



Interesting is I got a flier in the mail from a company named “kin”.

I contacted them and they quoted me a policy that would be $500.00 dollars less than my new quote.

They said it would be dependent on me paying $80.00 for a Wind Mitigation Inspection where they look for Hurricane Clips in my attic.


Anyone know about “kin”, Wind Mitigation Inspections and Hurricane clips in attics?


My house was built new in the year 2000 by Lennar Homes.


Have fun
Thanks…

Here comes my @UCFBS impresson, mega post incoming. Link below to new UCF strategic plan for 2022 - 2033, just released. Pretty good stuff in there.

https://www.ucf.edu/unleashing-potential/

A few juicy tidbits... on page 43 in the Student Success priority I believe it says "Evaluate the use of Direct Connect for student success and major selection," or similar. Are we going to see a cut back on Direct Connect? Funnelling into certain majors? Interesting.

In a similar section they discussed modifying the mix of transfer, in state, out of state, and graduate students for more optimal financial results. It sounds to me like they are planning to replace some of the weaker direct connect kids with out of staters from Texas and cold Big XII country that pay higher fees, while emphasizing grad school and research to grow our profile.

They want to grow the endowment to $350MM (from $200MM) and grow research to $350MM annual (also from $200MM) hard to tell which goals are 2027 and which are 2033 but they are aggressive reach goals for sure. Seems like the plan is to fund the $150MM in new annual research from $50mm of budget reallocation, $50mm of new state funding, and $50mm of grants and philanthropy. Makes sense to a simple dude.

There were several mentions of the Big XII in the board meeting materials today... they are trying to leverage the publicity of the Big XII to make us look like more of a grown up, national research school. I like it.

We’ve seen 4 postseasons and have 0 conference titles and only 1 regional. Would you prefer a typical Lovelady type record this year finish 37-21 while losing in the conference tourney and not making a regional, all but assuring he is kept on? Or an all out tank 26-32 type record, forcing TMo to likely make the move?

So who’s our next Boom? Does Gus have someone ready to pull the trigger for the big recruiting weekend coming up?

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How does a piece of shit like this maintain office?

Rollins just beat Tampa in the Super Regional to advance to the Division II College World Series.

The Tars' No. 1 pitcher is LHP Jaylyn Whitehead, who pitched the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons at UCF.

He transferred to Rollins in 2021, his extra COVID year, then thanks to Rollins playing a limited schedule in 2021 he was granted another year of eligibility (this is his SEVENTH year of being a college baseball player). He was a Class of 2015 graduate of Olympia HS and redshirted at New Mexico in 2016, played one year of JUCO in 2017, then 2018-20 at UCF and now 2021-22 at Rollins.

The national stats haven't been updated this weekend, but Whitehead was No. 2 nationally in D2 in ERA - 1.62 with 100.00 IP. The first place pitcher at Tampa (1.23 ERA) only pitched 58.1 innings though.

In game one of the Supers vs. Tampa, Whitehead got the win, giving up one run in 7.0 innings.

His current stats are 1.60 ERA in 107.0 IP.

Jaylyn's brother Jeslyn Whitehead is a pretty good player too.

Their father, Shane, has been a longtime member of the local sports media with WFTV.



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