Quote:UCF football playing for personal pride against Cincinnati
Shannon Green Contact Reporter
Orlando Sentinel
OCTOBER 27, 2015

UCF's practice was a decibel quieter Tuesday morning, the team's first workout without the booming voice of recently retired head coach George O'Leary.

Players went through the same motions, but the emotions were different.

"It's bizarre, honestly, at practice, him not being there," UCF left tackle Aaron Evans said. "He was a very dominant presence, so when he's not there, it's strange. I think there's gonna be an adjustment period right now, but I think it's good."

Interim coach Danny Barrett gave players and staff the day off Monday to have 24 hours to refocus after O'Leary's surprising news that he would not finish out the 2015 season as head coach.

Most of the players already read the news on their cell phones by the time O'Leary gathered them for a team meeting Sunday afternoon. But even as their former coach confirmed the information, players still had a hard time believing the man who spent the past 12 seasons building UCF into a household name would suddenly be gone.

Some players cried, others were just numb, said senior linebacker Domenic Spencer.

"I know I was sad because he gave me an opportunity to play football," Spencer said. "You guys know my story, I had no scholarship offers, this was the only offer I ever had even out of DII, DIII and junior college."

He added, "We're gonna try to win these last four games for him, that's how we're looking at it now. It's a four-game season, 0-0 and we're gonna try to these four games out for him."

UCF (0-8 overall, 0-4 American Athletic Conference) will start the respect tour Saturday at Cincinnati (4-3 overall, 1-2 AAC). Kickoff is set for noon and ESPNews will broadcast the game.

The range of emotions UCF players have gone through in the past 72 hours don't even begin to compare to the roller coaster of a season marked by banged up bodies and dashed hopes.

Each week, players have faced the challenge of trying to find new ways to mine positives out of mostly negative situations and with O'Leary's hasty departure, players are finding ways to turn this into another motivating factor to win.

"I think most importantly, the past couple of days our team has really come together," junior receiver Nick Patti said. "I think it's a situation that's kind of unprecedented, not a lot of people go through it, but like I said, it's an opportunity for us to all come together. . . . I think that's kind of forced to have happened, but it's unfortunate circumstances, it really is. None of us are really happy about it or anything like that, but we just gotta refocus, kind of change our direction, our course and get moving in the direction Coach Barrett wants us in more so than we already had to."

Barrett really has just 24 hours coaching the UCF football team under his belt. The first day was spent addressing administrative concerns. But with little time Barrett has had, he's spent it emphasizing one word to players: pride.

"The message he's been telling us since yesterday is pride. Take pride in ourselves, pride in the program. We are UCF," Evans said. "And I think that . . . is motivation. He's trying to make us take ownership of this situation that we're in and take pride in it."

(10-28-2015 07:31 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  We'll find out what happens Saturday, but I'd prefer a winless team not come in here the same week their coach was fired trying to win one for the Gipper. Given O'Leary's accomplisments @ UCF it's surprising they pulled the plug midseason.

(10-28-2015 07:40 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 07:31 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  We'll find out what happens Saturday, but I'd prefer a winless team not come in here the same week their coach was fired trying to win one for the Gipper. Given O'Leary's accomplisments @ UCF it's surprising they pulled the plug midseason.

Hate to say it but this was the first thing I thought of as well when I heard he resigned. When you add to the fact Danny Barrett is a UC alum/HOF player it only adds more fuel to the fire.

If you look at UCF's results this year, the only game where they were completely blown out was last week against Houston. They actually were ahead of Temple through three quarters until they lost 30-16. There are still a lot of pieces from their team from last year still on this squad. Despite the record this UCF team is more talented than the UConn team we saw last week (which on talent alone resembled a lower tiered MAC school last week IMO).

(10-28-2015 09:05 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  UCF might be the worst team in the country. No team has a worse loss than their loss to Furman. they've lost to 3 or 4 teams below 100 in the sagarins. No reason for this not to be a blood bath.

(10-28-2015 09:20 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 09:05 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  UCF might be the worst team in the country. No team has a worse loss than their loss to Furman. they've lost to 3 or 4 teams below 100 in the sagarins. No reason for this not to be a blood bath.

Last time we said that we needed a last minute TD to avoid the worst loss in a generation.

(10-28-2015 09:31 AM)AeroCat Wrote:  Our team tends to play to their competition... They play good teams tough and go into easy games asleep.

(10-28-2015 09:50 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  Hey, not to derail the thread, but did anyone get those complimentary drink coasters that were to be given out last Saturday? We were in the stadium nearly 40 minutes before kickoff and never even saw anyone who did receive them. And none of the staff I saw near the gates knew anything either. Just curious...

(10-28-2015 09:50 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 09:31 AM)AeroCat Wrote:  Our team tends to play to their competition... They play good teams tough and go into easy games asleep.

Yes, that's a valid concern. Let's hope that rain really does hold off until after the game and we see an unprecedented aerial assault from the men in Black. It remains a must win for UC bowl eligibility.

Hey, not to derail the thread, but did anyone get those complimentary drink coasters that were to be given out last Saturday? We were in the stadium nearly 40 minutes before kickoff and never even saw anyone who did receive them. And none of the staff I saw near the gates knew anything either. Just curious...

(10-28-2015 09:20 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 09:05 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  UCF might be the worst team in the country. No team has a worse loss than their loss to Furman. they've lost to 3 or 4 teams below 100 in the sagarins. No reason for this not to be a blood bath.

Last time we said that we needed a last minute TD to avoid the worst loss in a generation.

(10-28-2015 09:50 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(10-28-2015 09:31 AM)AeroCat Wrote:  Our team tends to play to their competition... They play good teams tough and go into easy games asleep.

Yes, that's a valid concern. Let's hope that rain really does hold off until after the game and we see an unprecedented aerial assault from the men in Black. It remains a must win for UC bowl eligibility.

Hey, not to derail the thread, but did anyone get those complimentary drink coasters that were to be given out last Saturday? We were in the stadium nearly 40 minutes before kickoff and never even saw anyone who did receive them. And none of the staff I saw near the gates knew anything either. Just curious...

(10-28-2015 10:07 AM)Racinejake Wrote:  My buddy was going to go after the game and redeem all of his tickets for the coasters but I haven't seen them yet.

(10-28-2015 08:32 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Marsellus knows....

Feel that sting? That's pride ******* witcha. **** pride.