As I'm sure many of you read over the weekend on Voodoo Five, USF had a bit of a scheduling issue for next year, one non-conference game short of a full slate. News broke this morning that the Bulls did in fact work out their trouble, scheduling Nevada for a home-and-home series that will begin in Reno September 8th.
Additional news came out today that Nevada was not the Bulls' first choice. In fact, USF initially looked to stay quite a bit closer to home. Greg Auman reported today that USF first called over to Orlando to try and schedule a game against UCF in the 66,000 seat Citrus Bowl. To the surprise (and delight) of USF fans, Central Florida actually declined to host the Bulls, citing the fact that they were looking for another home game, despite being just sixteen miles away from the proposed site.
You've probably seen in recent months that USF had gotten some heat from UCF fans. I'm sure you all agree that this is a very ironic and hilarious turn of events for USF fans. You can hear my take after the jump.
It's no secret that I'm not exactly the biggest fan of our neighbors to the East. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I genuinely dislike the entire university, not just their athletics. And if you follow me on twitter or read my blog posts regularly, you know I'm not afraid to advertise what I think about the Knights. And I've gotten my fair share of hateful responses. One of my firmest stances that I've taken is that USF is past playing against UCF. I've gone so far as to say that they don't deserve to have our team on the same field as them. And I still stand by that notion. In the past, I've had UCF fans berate me for the things I've said. The thing I've heard the most is that USF is afraid to schedule UCF because they believe the Knights have surpassed the Bulls in all athletics. Naturally, I had a laugh at their expense and explained to them that while USF has been away from the Knights, they've been busy beating far superior teams like Auburn, Florida State, and Notre Dame. So you can imagine what was going through my mind when I read this news today. USF stretched out an olive branch and offered to play a game IN ORLANDO and they declined. So it's not the Bulls who are avoiding scheduling UCF, but in fact the other way around.
While we're on the subject, I also want to take an opportunity to express my distaste for our own administration, offering to play a team who has done nothing to show that they deserve a spot on our schedule. USF has been on to much better things, and this would just retrograde the progress in their recent scheduling. I also don't quite understand why Nevada was a second choice, even for a home-and-home. If you read the VoodooFive post, you'll see that teams like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Tennessee, and TCU all had schedule vacancies, and if USF was willing to go away, why not give any of them a call? But we went with Nevada, a possibly rising football team with a decent following and a nice opportunity for the team to travel west. And yes, they're a hell of a lot better than UCF.
The point of this whole post is that ever since USF jumped to the Big East all I've heard from UCF fans is that the Bulls are afraid to go back to Orlando and lose to a non-BCS team. Obviously that isn't, and was never the case. And now it's apparent that UCF wants as little a part in the Bulls as USF wants in them. So shut up, UCF fans. You have nothing to say anymore.
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