Can someone explain to me

[Bullshiznitz]

Its a combo of everything you stated in the first post.  For one, they were over the top lucky during the Fiesta Bowl season.  Realistically that should have been another 9-4 type team for them.  Solid good years, but nothing dominating like their record made it appear.  

From there, its sanctions finally catching up to them.  Its losing their arguably best recruiter because of that fiasco (Kelly).  Its losing other decent assistants and then replacing them with our rejects (Bresnahan). Its not having a viable QB after Bortles.  And most importantly for them, its poor recruiting on the OL, followed by key injuries on the OL.  No kidding, they likely have the worst OL in Div I.  Its going to be brutally ugly for them this weekend against Temple's front seven.  

Throw in an aging coach who seems to be loyal to a coach in over his head (OC Keys), and its a full on recipe for disaster. 

Edited October 12, 2015 by Bullshiznitz

[USFbulls24]

UCF struck lightning in a bottle with Blake Bortles. Never should've had Storm Johnson he should've been at Miami or Georgia. They lost 5 really, really good WRs. Pretty sure they also lost 7+ defensive starters the last 2 seasons. They were in trouble from the get go this season just looking at that.

Over the last few years they got so lucky with some of their wins. They barely squeaked out wins against Memphis (3-9) and Temple (2-10) the year they went to the BCS game (2013). Last year beating ECU on a last second hail mary where the ECU defender jumped at the 5 yard line and Perriman caught the ball in the endzone... They beat Houston because Greg Ward Jr fumbled at the 1 yard line with 20 seconds left in the game. TD would've put Houston up 19 -17. The football gods are evening it out now. 

Blake Bortles absolutely made that team. 

 

[ArmyBull]

I agree with everything except the thought that they don't recruit well or that their recruiting has been off.  Several services, ESPN was one, had UCFs last couple of classes ahead of ours.  Even 247 had them higher than us in average star rating.  We beat them out do to numbers of recruits.  UCF has been and is recruiting at either first or second in the AAC for the last few years.  So yes, the Fiesta Bowl win did help them.  But, no matter what, they are not going to start recruiting 5 stars and a dozen 4 stars...  nobody in the AAC would.    

[Dhambuc]

They also have Chuck Bresnahan.     Huge difference.  We are now in ALL of our games as a result of the change.(Defense is one of the best we have had in years).   They are now getting Blown out and they stink esp on the defensive side of the ball.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Dhambuc

[Dogma]

I agree with everything except the thought that they don't recruit well or that their recruiting has been off.  Several services, ESPN was one, had UCFs last couple of classes ahead of ours.  Even 247 had them higher than us in average star rating.  We beat them out do to numbers of recruits.  UCF has been and is recruiting at either first or second in the AAC for the last few years.  So yes, the Fiesta Bowl win did help them.  But, no matter what, they are not going to start recruiting 5 stars and a dozen 4 stars...  nobody in the AAC would.    

Not sure where you are getting this info from:  Only 1 service has UCF ranked higher than USF and that was only one year:

247 - http://247sports.com/Season/2014-Football/CompositeTeamRankings?Conference=AAC

2015

• USF 83.07
• UCF 82.45

2014

• USF 84.22
• UCF 83.71

2013

• USF 83.02
• UCF 80.71

2012

• USF 84.10
• UCF 79.37

ESPN: http://insider.espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/football/insider/story/_/id/8890352/41-75

http://insider.espn.go.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/classrankings?class=2014

2015

• USF 72
• UCF 49

2014 -

• USF: 40
• UCF 52

2013

• USF 52
• UCF 74

 

This proves how bad O'Liar is at recruiting if he cannot bring in a good class after the best years of their program's history.  Especially since they were ranked lower than USF who were at the lowest point (hopefully that stays past tense) of their history.

And if you want to bring up sanctions, remember (at least for 247) this is average stars.  Not the total signings.

[Triple B]

 

Not sure where you are getting this info from:  Only 1 service has UCF ranked higher than USF and that was only one year:

247 - http://247sports.com/Season/2014-Football/CompositeTeamRankings?Conference=AAC

2015

• USF 83.07
• UCF 82.45

2014

• USF 84.22
• UCF 83.71

2013

• USF 83.02
• UCF 80.71

2012

• USF 84.10
• UCF 79.37

ESPN: http://insider.espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/football/insider/story/_/id/8890352/41-75

http://insider.espn.go.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/classrankings?class=2014

2015

• USF 72
• UCF 49

2014 -

• USF: 40
• UCF 52

2013

• USF 52
• UCF 74

 

This proves how bad O'Liar is at recruiting if he cannot bring in a good class after the best years of their program's history.  Especially since they were ranked lower than USF who were at the lowest point (hopefully that stays past tense) of their history.

And if you want to bring up sanctions, remember (at least for 247) this is average stars.  Not the total signings.

He said average star rating, which to me also is the better indicator, not the total ...

[Dhambuc]

I will also add... UCF was more of a paper tiger.  I know.. people will say that wins are all that matter, which for record purposes is true.

But you have to remember, they played an extremely weak conference schedule last year.  They lost all games against P5 teams.

And a few of their wins were on miracle plays.  Yes a win is a win, but the point I wanted to bring up is that weren't that good of a team to be able to suffer from any setback. A great team can absorb them, a borderline good team will be affected even more. 

Taking this into account, they suffered the "perfect storm" of being that level of a borderline good team, while suffering more than 1 setback: injuries as well as replacing coordinators.  I won't call graduation of players as a setback because every team suffers from this (this is what separates great programs/coaches with just good ones.)

A great coach/program is able to keep incoming recruitment stable and high to replace graduating players of the same program/recruitment.  This isn't comparing recruitment against the likes of Alabama, FSU, or UF... but against their peers, other AAC teams, as well as other "G5" teams.  This is something O'Liar has been unable to do.  In addition, history has already shown that O'Liar, while having very good years, suffers extremely bad years.  For some reason he is a coach that cannot sustain a program's level/performance. Also.. I dont know if O'Liar is someone easy to work for.  They've had coordinators leave every so often, and even had one recently file a lawsuit for racist remarks against him.

"They've had coordinators leave every so often"        We have had a ton of turnover the past 5 years as well when it comes to coaching and coordinators.  Prob as much or more than them when you think about it.  As for injuries: everyone has to deal with them.    As for recruiting, we have out recruited them according to most sites for years.

[2000bull]

He said average star rating, which to me also is the better indicator, not the total ...

trip the 247 numbers are the average stars, which I could be wrong, but I believe is a composite of a few sites

[Dogma]

He said average star rating, which to me also is the better indicator, not the total ...

 

The data I provided were the average star ratings for 247, since that was the point ArmyBull was bringing up.

 

This proves how bad O'Liar is at recruiting if he cannot bring in a good class after the best years of their program's history.  Especially since they were ranked lower than USF who were at the lowest point (hopefully that stays past tense) of their history.

And if you want to bring up sanctions, remember (at least for 247) this is average stars.  Not the total signings.

 

I cant find average star ratings for ESPN in any free section.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Dogma

[Triple B]

Yeah, I see that the 247 is the average rating, just not the average star rating which is where my confusion was .... Rivals did have UCF's 2015 star average higher than ours and that must be the one year Dogma was talking about.