This UCF Business Has Gone Far Enough

If you don't know by now, there is much buzz around college football fans because of the release of EA Sports NCAA Football '12 today. What many of you may not know is that EA Sports released a raw video of a game between UCF and USF where it appears that the Knights are playing against a bad high school football team. The video features five UCF touchdowns against a hilariously bad defense and defensive highlights that would bring a tear to Ray Lewis's eye. But enough of me talking about this video, see it for yourself here:

As you can see, either EA is not giving South Florida any credit or they're trying to make UCF look like they belong at the top of the SEC. Let's not forget that EA has an office in Orlando. Coincidence? You decide. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, I've seen enough garbage lately glorifying Central Florida beyond what they really are. I've got much more to say about the media's tilt toward UCF after the jump.

The Orlando Sentinel has done more than their share of making their local university sound like the best thing that has ever happened to the NCAA, pushing them as a front candidate for an invitation to join the Big East. The always entertaining, but surely never serious (right?) Mike Bianchi even went so far as to recommend that the Big East dump USF and add UCF in their place, suggesting that if the Big East doesn't go for them, a bigger, better conference will. This is my interpretation of pretty much every Mike Bianchi column I've ever read:

Naturally, how could the SEC have been so blind for this long? UCF beat both Alabama and Georgia all in a short 11-year span. They're also in the Southeast, which makes them an obvious choice. No history you say? Well, little do you know UCF was the best team in the state last year, proven by the polls. They got more votes than any other team in the state, thus clearly making them the best. Save your head-to-head record talk for the analysts. Everyone knows losing to USF four times and getting pounded by both Miami and Florida the times they've met means nothing. It's the Big Four now, meaning Miami, Florida, Florida State, and UCF. Pretty soon, it'll be the Big One. UCF Nation, our time has come.

Recently, some poll came out that said that UCF was the third most popular college football team in the state, behind only Florida and Florida State. That's right, they're apparently more popular than Miami, one of the longest-established powers in the nation. You know they had a party in Orlando over that, regardless of the degree of reliability of the poll.

Central Florida just spent more than their entire athletics budget on a lawsuit where they were found negligent in the death of a student, where his death could have easily been avoided if only their coach had a soul. AND THEY'RE APPEALING IT. They're appealing a ruling where they were ordered to accept responsibility for the death of a student-athlete and allow the family to have a little closure. Instead, they decided it would be a good idea to bring the verdict to appellate court and further extend the Plancher family's grief. And the university fully supports it.

Did you forget the NCAA allegations surrounding UCF too? Last year the university's athletics association was placed on probation by the NCAA for major recruiting infractions committed by the football staff, but that didn't stop them from going about their business. This year the NCAA was back on campus in Orlando searching for evidence regarding the basketball team's suspicious recruitment of their players with the help of Ken Caldwell. That investigation has not been concluded, but if the NCAA rules unfavorably in the interest of Central Florida they will be considered "repeat offenders" and will face severe penalties.

Yeah, UCF football won 11 games last year. You know how many of those 11 teams had winning records? None. "But what about SMU? They played in the C-USA Championship Game!" Nope, they went 7-7 and got pounded by a below-average Army team. "What about Georgia? They're in the SEC, and they were in a bowl game!" Georgia went 6-7 last year was was quite possibly the worst teams to have made a bowl last year. I'm still a little upset that Georgia went to a bowl and Temple got left home. UCF basketball got off to a pretty hot start last year, huh? They also lost 8 straight games to mediocre C-USA teams. One good season in athletics doesn't earn you a spot in a high-profile conference.

Allow me to put this clearly: UCF does not belong in the Big East. Their place is in Conference USA, where they can be a medium-sized fish in a medium-sized pond. Please, UCF fans, stop posting your drivel on how much better of a fit UCF is than USF for the Big East. The fact is that USF is in the Big East, and that's all that matters. It doesn't matter what USF did to deserve an invitation in 2005, because they did get the invitation. And UCF didn't.