Jan. 17, 2011
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By Marc Daniels
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - It was not a question of if, but a question of where when it came to the ranking for UCF in the final college football poll.
The Knights entered the Liberty Bowl game against Georgia already positioned in the poll, so when the victory over the Bulldogs happened, the wait game was to see how high UCF could be in the last ranking of the season.
After Auburn captured the BCS title with a win over Oregon, Tuesday morning delivered the final polls. The Knights finished 20th in the USA Today Coaches Poll and 21st in the Associated Press Poll. Both give UCF its highest ranking ever. And it is another highlight of UCF's greatest season ever.
But there is no guarantee the Knights will be a preseason top 25 team next season. Don't get mad at me, I'm just telling you there is work to be done. What work? The team doesn't play again until September.
To us UCF is a household name. It's a team we follow every day. To the rest of the college football world UCF is a brand in progress. Voters in both polls took notice of UCF's season but the Knights are newcomers to the process. Now comes the next step.
The football team will not play again for better than seven months. So UCF's marketing and athletics communications departments plays a key role this off season. They must keep the brand out there. There are stories to be told about the type of team UCF can be in 2011 and voters in those polls need to be reminded during the spring and early summer months.
Those voters often use previous year's rankings, preseason magazine polls and literature sent to them by schools to put together their first poll of the season. And that poll is very important. George O'Leary and many others will tell you, it's easier to stay in the poll when you start in the poll.
It would be nice to be ranked at the start of the season, but it might actually be the work of others not putting on the pads that determine if that happens.
More items on the menu:
The 2011 college football season is months away but the Conference USA race changed without a game last week. The NCAA granted Houston quarterback Case Keenum a sixth year of eligibility after missing most of the 2010 season with a knee injury. With Keenum back, Houston will likely be a co-favorite in the west with Tulsa.
Donnie Jones' team has dropped two in a row. Panic? No. The team is 14-2. Let me repeat. The team is 14-2. However, there are things UCF's coach wants to work on. Conference play is different. Your opponents know your personnel and that makes things more difficult to execute. The league is balanced and UCF has faced two of the better teams in the league already in Marshall and Southern Miss. But the Knights need more than Marcus Jordan and Keith Clanton on the offensive end. Now that he is healthy, Tom Herzog has to avoid an early second foul so he can be more effective on the offensive end. And the Knights need consistency from Isaac Sosa from game-to-game. But Jones has some concerns on defense. It has been a strength for UCF all season, but the last two games have found too many Knights getting caught watching while in the paint and getting beat off the dribble. Despite the two straight losses, UCF sits 21st in RPI as of Sunday afternoon. Conference USA ranks 8th as a league in RPI and there are six conference teams in the top 77 in RPI.
Knights notes and more: Bowl television ratings show the Liberty Bowl as the 14th most watched bowl game out of 35. It easily beat bowls like the Champs Sports and Gator Bowl, both bowls with matchups of BCS teams...Big week for Bruce Miller and Jah Reid as they play in the East-West Shrine Game at the Florida Citrus Bowl on Saturday. More important than the game, the workouts will be in front of scouts from every NFL team. Torrell Troup made a lot of money this week a year ago with impressive workouts that shot him up the draft board...The NCAA's new leader announced at a recent convention that the group is closing the loophole that allows a father to sell his son's football services to a school. And that loophole existed because why?...Final thought: While watching the NFL Playoffs a commercial came on promoting some pill you could take for anxiety. Some of the side effects are possible loss of feeling, reduction of heart rate, limited memory loss and feeling drowsy. Who then says "I'm willing to accept all that as a scenario. Where do I sign up?"
Marc Daniels' From the Press Box runs several times per month on UCFAthletics.com. Listen to Marc during UCF football, men's basketball and baseball radio broadcasts on the UCF Sports Network. Each weekday, Marc hosts The Beat of Sports on ESPN Radio 1080.