I wonder if Danny White had it to do over again, would he still vocally oppose all 2-for-1's? As I recall he admitted near the end of his tenure that he was struggling to get any Power 5 opponents scheduled. The future schedules bear that out. Some of that has to do with UCF's success over the past several seasons but a lot of it is just the nature of college football today. But it seems like DW drilled his "No 2-for-1" mantra into people's heads for 5 years and now they can't see it any other way.
The reason we got games in the past with Florida, Miami, Alabama, Auburn, Ohio State, Michigan, etc. is because we accepted the occasional lopsided series. Obviously we will never get any of those games if we continue the DW way. If you're fine with that, ok. But it looks like we can barely get mid-level Power 5 games anymore. Over the next 4 seasons there are only 3 Power 5 teams on the schedule -- Louisville twice and Georgia Tech once.
I think Gus's perspective, coming from Auburn, is likely reasonable -- if you want to advance beyond where you are now, you are going to have to compromise some to get on the big stage more often. Remember when all the talking heads finally started to reverse course on UCF -- it was after the Stanford blowout win. A regular season victory over a top-tier program (even though they were having a down year). If the perception is that you are scheduling and beating the big boys, the dynamic changes. Can't happen with wins over Georgia Tech and Memphis.
UCF in these specific 2-for-1 (or 0-for-1) scenarios you called out: Florida....away...lost both badly. Miami....beating at home and away. Bama...away a million years ago, they went 3-8 that year and we won. Auburn...away...lost one tight game (BTW, they were 3-8 that year) and the other two were beat-downs. Ohio State...beat down. Michigan....beat down.
Yeah, let's sign up for more games like this. It makes total sense!!
Giving away road games is a dumb idea. I get it, gotta play a neutral site, 0-for-1 or 2-for-1 from time-to-time but it should be rare. Signing up for a whole bunch of 2-for-1's against really good programs is dumb. Just dumb. They don't do it. Why? Because they have enough common sense to know playing true road games is tough so they avoid it at all costs. Other than a bigger paycheck (which isn't going to change their lot in life), USF is going to regret ever signing up for all these, as each time they get a road beat-down (and the way they have been playing, probably a beatdown at home as well). So far they have been embarrassed twice. If you can win one here-or-there it'll only matter if both you and that team do really well that season (like in 2013 when we beat Louisville...but that was a conference game that year so Louisville couldn't avoid it), otherwise it means nothing.
What's more important is winning conference titles, and playing in (and winning) games that matter.
According to Winspedia UCF is 14-57 against P5/BCS competition + BYU:
UCF is 5-19 against the ACC. (win @ 3-7 GaTech, win @ 5-7 NC State, win vs Pitt at home, win vs BC at home, win @ 12-1 Louisville.
UCF is 1-5 against the Big 12. (win at neutral site game versus Baylor (bowl game))
UCF is 3-11 against the Big 10. (win vs Rutgers at home, win @ 4-8 Maryland, win @ 7-5 Penn State)
UCF is 1-2 against the PAC-12. (win vs 4-8 Stanford at home)
UCF is 3-18 against the SEC. (Win @3-8 Bama, Win at neutral site versus Georgia (bowl game). Win at neutral site versus Auburn (bowl game))
UCF is 1-2 against BYU (win was at home)
My takeaway from this is 2 quality road wins (Louisville and Penn State), and then a whole lot of losses.
