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[achiever1911]

Sports

Hey UCF, stop the trash talk

Mark Lennox

commentary

April 20, 2005

Recently, a barrage of slurs has been thrown our way via the fans and writers of the University of Central Florida. The UCF Future has sent a variety of lashes at us, from calling our fan base "pinto-driving rednecks" to mocking our campus as a "four-building charter school." All this was generated from the UCF baseball team beating USF twice earlier this season.

In a column titled, "There's no rivalry? Probably because you're losing to us," it's even been claimed that UCF has a better-looking campus. Well, let's go ahead and dispel these odd and childish rumors.

First, the all-time baseball series between USF and UCF is officially tied at 47 games. This is not a rivalry. The definition of a rival is, and I quote, "The state or condition of competition or antagonism." In order to be a rival, we have to care about the opposition. When USF players wake up on game day and see UCF on the schedule, it's not exactly a reason to cheer. It's just UCF.

I guess what The Future forgot to address in their bi-weekly penny press was the fact that their football team hasn't won a game since October 2003.

"Fine, I'll accept their football argument since we haven't played yet and the fact that George O'Leary recruits quality student-athletes while Bulls' coach Jim Leavitt recruits criminals," the column reads.

UCF doesn't need to recruit criminals when they already have one for a coach. Nobody needs a refresher course about O'Leary's past. It's easily one of the most embarrassing stories in the history of college football. Not to mention, O'Leary led the defense of the Minnesota Vikings in 2003 that managed to rank a whopping 23rd in the NFL. Sounds like UCF material to me.

I guess good ole UCF fell for O'Leary's forgery-on-the-resume' trick again, because he said he'd turn the UCF football program around. Instead, it looks like a deer in headlights, having lost 15 straight games.

The UCF Athletics homepage has a countdown until the football season begins. Can't wait to keep the nation's longest losing streak going? When was the last time you heard a school posting a 0-11 record and getting rewarded with a new stadium? Sorry you lost to Kent State and Buffalo, here's a new stadium. I'm not saying USF's football program is stellar -- I mean come on, it lost to Army. But at least USF's football program got in the win column. The UCF football program should apologize to the seniors on the football team last season for posting a giant donut in the win column.

So UCF basketball made the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year, having to leapfrog "powerhouse" Gardner-Webb for the Pathetic Sun title. If teams like Oakland can get an automatic berth, I wouldn't brag too much. Yeah, so you "almost beat UCONN." Sorry, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

The Knights would have needed a steady supply of Depends to make it through the Conference USA last season and probably would have lost to lowly Southern Miss.

Now, back to baseball. The USF Bulls rebounded from two close losses against the Knights dominating them in all facets of the game Tuesday night. Freshman pitcher Blake Tillett pitched a strong 5 1/3 innings. USF blew the game wide open with a six-run third inning, slamming UCF pitcher Ray Rodriguez in the process. Perhaps the icing on the cake was UCF's seventh inning error-fest. First and foremost, make it a point not to mock the intrastate university when your own baseball team can't field a routine fly ball that could have easily been caught on the little-league fields of West Tampa.

The two errors by the UCF Squires led to two Bull runs. USF lost two games to briefly -- and I stress briefly -- nationally ranked Knights by a total of four runs. Tuesday night, the Bulls pasted the Knights for nine runs on eight hits, including a grand slam by Joey Angelberger. You haven't swept the Bulls since 1995, and I'm not banking on it happening any time soon.

As for the future, have fun recruiting almost stellar athletes from Bithlo.

[bigbull]

I know I was shocked when I read that article....Must be an imposter to an Oracle writer....Very well written and well done article

[bullwark]

WOW!

[ucfknights04]

It it was well written and well done, I would have left out these lines:

"When was the last time you heard a school posting a 0-11 record and getting rewarded with a new stadium?"

"I wouldn't brag too much. Yeah, so you "almost beat UCONN.""

We could go on, but I just think that the casual USF fans might think "Ha Ha, hey, wait a sec, Where's our stadium?" or "Yeah, I watched the UCF vs. UCONN game.  I wish we made it to the dance"  

I'm sure these points were raised just for fair and balanced journalism though

[CyberBull]

When you get your head kicked in next September (to steal a move from Southern Piss's top recruit anf future UCF 'rival'), remember that it was the Future that gave USF's team bulletin board material.

[Guest wildrover]

I think the casual USF fan says "I think Ray Jay is a sweet place to play"  it does seem though that UCF wants to generate a rivalary more with us than we do with them.  I almost wish the article wasn't written because in a way it sort of re-affirms a rivarly that seems almost one sided.  It's sort of like the rivarly we have with Florida, we want so bad for there to be one, but to them we still aren't much to think about.  I think its kind of the same here, you never here Bulls students talk about a hatred for UCF, I doubt they even think much aboutthe school to tell you the truth, but I have heard a lot of UCF'ers drop bombs on USF whenever possible.  I wonder why it's so unbalanced.  Why don't we care but they do?  

[lotsofbull99]

I am a USF alum and I hate UCF deeply. >

[TripleB]

This is not a rivalry. The definition of a rival is, and I quote, "The state or condition of competition or antagonism." In order to be a rival, we have to care about the opposition. When USF players wake up on game day and see UCF on the schedule, it's not exactly a reason to cheer. It's just UCF.

This is Pulitzer Prize stuff ...    8)

BTW, this probably should be moved to one of the other boards ...

[Guest Sprtsfn627]

I saw that article and was happy to see some good pro-USF stuff from the Oracle

Now if they can keep it up  ;D

[Ricky the Bull]

Extra credit to the writer for the dig on 'lowly' Southern Miss!    ;D