atsKnight

Gabriel looks great for a freshman, but he's still a freshman. No one was talking playoff before the season, but he has the ceiling to get us there. But not freshman year, they're too easy to rattle. The defense didn't look that great to me against Stanford and historically our defense collapses when our offense stalls, so that wasn't a surprise. We'll see what happens with the fans. I think USF fans read too much into the empty stands during the winless season. I think you'll see a lot more resiliency in attendance than your average Bulls fan would expect.

Not a psych major, but I would be happy to discuss where you're coming from, assuming that's why you chimed in. Please, comment further if that was your intention.

Not an unexpected response. That sounds good, let's try again the next time you and I engage.

1) I did 2) The reason I used Alabama as an example is they are a clear example of the divorce between a team's performance and the insecurity of the fanbase. Despite Bama being a clear top 2 in CFB, their fans compulsively attack UCF fans, Clemson fans, and anyone who questions the SEC. On paper, they shouldn't care what anyone thinks of them. But in reality, they engage with people constantly to defend and convince about their superiority. CFB gives a person unaware of their insecurity or uncomfortable with their life a way to disguise that as 'concern for the team and defending it's reputation'. The pertinence of this is that you seem to have a lot of concerns about other people's insecurities and a strong need to defend USF's reputation. You explain that you can't be insecure because USF is a top 80 program. I hope I've given you some food for thought, but I'm pretty sure all of that went over your head. You can make your own choices on how to respond.

Ha! I tried to warn the UCF fans about the hype around Gabriel. I expect we have a couple more losses coming as he gets his sea legs. But I think the principles apply to all of us. But part of the fun in CFB is putting too much hope in potential. If we didn't have that, the field of programs would be much, much smaller.

Feel free to be optimistic, but I would be cautious in that if I were you, especially with a young QB. I have many times gotten way too optimistic about a young QB being the future of the program only to root for his backup a year or even a couple games later. QBs look different when there's more tape on them.

I'm not really sure how to respond to this. Do you think a person's level of insecurity is tied to how their college football team is doing? Was the shot you're referring to me talking about Bama fans' insecurities? Do you look up to them and feel slighted because I don't have your level of reverence? I'm trying to figure out what level of understanding and self-awareness you have on this stuff.

But how much are you missing out on by waiting until you can do it right? Our plan was to start cheap and upgrade. Granted, we lucked out that the cheapness of the stadium became a feature instead of a bug, but what would it hurt USF to do the incremental upgrade plan? If I were a USF fan, I would be really nervous that the program is crashing and fan support is catering at a really pivotal time in vollege athletics. I mean, any of us could turn into USM with enough bad years.

First off, that was a pretty weird flex. But even if it wasn't and USF was in the top 10 in academics and athletics, anyone whose security depends on their school rankings is insecure. Rankings can go up and down and there's always someone better than you. Even if you were top 2, you always have the knowledge that there is a better school out there. Do Alabama fans seem secure to you? Did you talk to any Harvard alumni after the grades scandal? Security can't come from your alma mater. What if you did go to the best school but you weren't top of the class? What if you were top of the class but not considered successful? What if you were the most successful but you're burning out and your marriage sucks?

Sorry for any miscommunication, I was referring to JTrue's insecurities. I haven't interacted with you at any length to comment. But JTrue is one of those classic insecure people that think they're doing a good job covering it up. I posited a hypothesis to him that he keeps turning the conversation to other people's insecurity because he's projecting. As expected, he's having trouble directly responding. It's much more of working theory than a hypothesis, but sometimes if you propose things indirectly, it can help people to realize new things on their own.

Ha! I wonder if other USF alums are cringing when they see you reply to a post and say "nobody is engaging". Honestly, JTrue, seeing your unique responses is a lot of the good stuff here for me. Still no thoughts or acknowledgement of my hypothesis about your own insecurity?

Scheduling philosophy was just a part of the discussion. Do you really need me to recap the whole thing? Thanks for not trying to wow me with your reading comprehension. I was clear that participating in discussions on this site is interesting for me to see your, let's say unique, reactions but also helps to gauge where UCF is as a program, by comparing you to past rivals. Now I've explained my reasons for posting about UCF on this board, what's your reason? And you pointedly have refused to answer or even acknowledge my hypothesis about insecurity, which is probably more telling than you intend it to be.

I've explained this is another thread. You were part of that discussion. Do you need me to link to the other thread?

Fair enough, some of you still hope for it.

It's interesting to me that USF fans used to criticize UCF fans for being obsessed with them and should be called UCiF for making excuses for the lack of any tangible signs of success. The way life works out is fascinating sometimes, isn't it?

Well don't believe in stupid fairy tales. Keep doing things the USF way and stay the course. I apologize for having a different version of the story. I'm just a delusional fan who follows a team that will now sink into irrelevancy now that we lost to Pitt.

That sounds great. I love that you're convinced. As I said, things are working well for you, keep doing what works.

Um, y'all might want to attack from a different direction. I don't think a lot of UCF fans are concerned about being irrelevant and I can read that a lot of USF fans are. And I get where they are coming from.

Am I to understand that your argument is that we lost to Pitt, therefore USF wouldn't benefit from an OCS? I'm not trying to convince, I love the dedication to RayJay. Keep it up if it's working for you.

As a fan of a rival school, I love how much y'all love it.

It's an interesting conversation. Is it going to be more interesting to watch Pitt fans say the same stuff Stanford fans said a week ago? Any response to my hypothesis about your projection of your own insecurity? And what's the Gordon Rule credit?

I keep trying to say the same thing, but it doesn't seem to come across. We continue to dole out unwanted advice because it's interesting to watch someone ignore good advice and then experience the consequences. What are their arguments? How will they react when the consequences are happening? Will they know or stay in denial? Once it becomes obvious, will they admit mistakes or stay in denial? Those are all interesting questions. Especially in a college football world where a lot of the same things happen every year and there's not as much variation as you would expect. That's a fair point about success and hindsight. We'll never know that stuff fully. But to your point about the stadium, the same applies. You don't know the full story of our stadium, neither do I. And neither of us know exactly why it has filled now where it didn't before. But my version of the story is much different than yours, involving a lot more fan support and a lot less luck. Which is part of what makes USF's lack of fan support for an OCS that much more fascinating.

I think (not 100% on this) that y'all were better off with Leavitt strategy. Act like your rivals are beneath you and not really rivals. UCF has focused on building our program and fanbase. Having rivals helps both. USF has focused more on establishing legitimacy as a program and having rivals that are newer undercuts that. I think the damage is that it helped us more than it helped you, so even when we were 0-4, the existence of the series helped us.

You should read the rest of that previous post after "I'm a big fan". We like to interact with rival fanbases to see how they'll react. We run things by them because we have a good idea of what works and what doesn't and it is interesting to watch other fanbases blindly defend their school's strategy or lack thereof. We did it with ECU, USM, Marshall, etc. It's not just our stuff, that's why UCF fans always weigh in on a USF OCS. We know it's a good idea and important for y'all, but it's fascinating to listen to fans defend RayJay. It gets more interesting the more obvious the effects get. So we're at the beginning stages of this process with the lazy river. It's almost certainly a good idea. But what are USF fans going to say? Oh, they think it's dumb, glad USF would never do this. Ok, we'll mark it down and check in later. Then you come back later and some are wondering why there isn't a USF lazy river but are shouted down. Later, we're celebrating all the good things the lazy river has brought and the tone here changes to, maybe we should have made a lazy river... Just be patient, I've posted something like on other boards before. Edit: hiring Strong was immensely fascinating. USF were celebrating the hire, but UCF fans were celebrating more. We were debating whether it would set y'all back 4 or 6 years, depending on the buyout. The progression here from celebration to defeat has been obvious to some of you, as well, right?

I'll be honest, at first I thought puc was a UCF concern troll. But over the years, ive realized he(she?) is just one of the few willing to be blunt about concerns. He was right about the rivalry, y'all never should have played us. Nothing to gain everything to lose. No UCF fan would have admitted that.