Saturday Knights Live
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Football Media Guide Covers | Football Trading Cards | Uniform History Pt. I
 |  | Part 1 - The Birth of Saturday Knights Live To the players on the University of Central Florida inaugural football team, it all began on a dreary and rainy September Saturday in Dade City where the new Fighting Knights were set to play St. Leo College in the 1979 season-opener. However, many of the players would tell you it really started much earlier, in March, when they learned that the UCF athletics director was hosting a meeting for prospective college football players on the university's golf driving range. There stood Dr. Jack O'Leary in front of an assorted crew of over 100 prospective players. Some were talented and some were not; some came ready and seasoned, while some were just too dumb to know any better. The group would spend the afternoon performing an audition in agility and physical fitness. more |
 | | Part 2 - Finally, It's Gametime! St. Leo wanted to call off the game. The sky had gone dark and a torrential downpour turned the football field into a flooded cow pasture. However, UCF head coach Don Jonas insisted that the game must be played; history would not be halted. Waiting out the storm, the team assembled in a hallway of a nearby classroom building for Jonas' inaugural pre-game speech. He spoke of the game's importance and how future UCF football teams would either succeed or fail based on the day's results. UCF could establish a winning tradition if it could win this game. more |
 | | Part 3 - The Knights Move Up to Division II The results were not always positive the next few seasons. With the move to NCAA Division II for the 1982 campaign and the advent of scholarship football, UCF was now playing more established programs, even facing many top-10 Division I-AA powerhouse teams. After going 4-6 in 1981, UCF made another bold hire, naming Bill Peterson as its new athletics director in May 1982. "Coach Pete", as he was affectionately called, helped Florida State reach a level of national prominence in the 1960s as the Seminoles' head coach from 1960-70. He then went on to Rice as the Owls' head coach and athletics director for a season in 1971, before taking on the head coaching reigns with the National Football League's Houston Oilers from 1972-74. more |
 | | Part 4 - UCF Develops Winning Ways UCF may have started to catch up to its level of play by the 1986 season, McDowell's second at the school. The team had its first wining record since its inaugural 1979 season, winning four of the first five games en route to a 6-5 finish. On top of the performance, fans and supporters helped set attendance records twice that season. When UCF defeated Bethune-Cookman in the season-opener, it did so in front of a home-record 23,041. Later in the year, 23,760 showed up for the homecoming game against Wofford. However, many would say The Beach Boys concert held at the Citrus Bowl after the game had something to do with the high attendance. more |
 | | Part 5 - Division I-AA Football Comes to Orlando UCF made its long-awaited move to NCAA Division I-AA in 1990 and proved up to the task, going a program-best 10-4 and becoming the first school in history to qualify for the I-AA playoffs in its first season of eligibility, even hosting a second-round contest. The team impressively marched all the way to the I-AA playoff semifinals, defeating Youngstown State in Ohio and William & Mary in the Citrus Bowl along the way, where it eventually fell to rival and eventual national champion Georgia Southern in Statesboro. Gene McDowell was named the Eddie Robinson I-AA Coach of the Year, the first such honor for the UCF football program. The playoff run was one thing; the excitement leading up to the 1990 national championship was another. It was a time of mass celebration on the UCF campus. more |
 | | Part 6 - Daunte's World...Orlando's Biggest Attraction UCF's final season in I-AA, 1995, was still ahead and it would be a mighty challenge with road games at top-ranked Florida State in addition to back-to-back visits at other Division I-A schools Hawaii and Northeast Louisiana. Along with a difficult schedule, McDowell's club had also graduated 14 starters from the year prior, including all-time leading passer and receiver Hinshaw and Rhodes, respectively, off Kruczek's record-setting offense. UCF was returning its "double-trouble" backfield tandem of Smith and Davis, cited that preseason as the best 1-2 backfield punch in Division I-AA by The Sporting News. Pierce, UCF's All-American kicker, was also back. But the real cause for excitement was that the quarterback job was won by a true freshman out of Ocala, Fla., Daunte Culpepper. The Ocala Vanguard product and Florida's Mr. Football in 1994 stood 6-foot-4 and 230-pounds and could throw the ball 80 yards in the air and run a fast 4.6 40-yard-dash. more |
 | | Part 7 - Looking for Krucz' Control Mike Kruczek's first season as UCF's head coach in 1998 was unlike any other during his six-year tenure. The Knights went 9-2 in his rookie year at the helm and Daunte Culpepper nearly led the Knights to earning their first bowl bid in only the third season in I-A. However, the next five seasons, UCF would win no more than seven games in any one year and after a 3-7 start to 2003 Kruczek would step aside. more |
 | | Part 8 - George O'Leary Makes His Mark at UCF Coming off a 3-9 season in 2003 that concluded with the loss of its head coach, UCF was fully aware that a university's stock is enhanced by a successful athletics program. UCF President John C. Hitt told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "If you want to be taken seriously as a major public institution in the Southeast, you also have to have a presence in Division I-A football. People expect to see that." more |