Former UCF football coach George O’Leary was predictably blunt when asked his reaction Tuesday to reports that UCF will join the Big 12 perhaps as soon as this week while in-state rival USF is left behind to pick up the pieces in the crumbling American Athletic Conference.
O’Leary and McMurphy are referring to the mocking twist of fate regarding USF being left in the dust while UCF prepares to move into a Power 5 league that will afford the Knights more money, more prestige and more recruiting advantages than ever before. You see, it was USF that tried desperately for years to keep UCF’s football program from reaching big-time status by dropping the Knights from the schedule and blocking their entrance into the Big East.