An Open Letter to Blake Bortles

Dear Blake -

Hi.  How are you doing?  Pretty big week this week, wasn't it?  It must be hard to wrap your mind around.  On Tuesday, you were the starting quarterback of UCF - the "undeserving" recipient of the last BCS-based American Conference invite to a "big BCS bowl."  On Thursday, you were the Bearkiller.  MVP of the Fiesta Bowl.  Mr Clutch.  Hot NFL draft commodity.  Subject of an ESPN poll about if we knew who you were or not.  Topic of national sports discussion on various outlets (Dan Patrick, ESPN, NFL).  Quite the life-altering week.

You don't know me.  I don't really know you.  I know your mom (unlike the ESPN cameramen).  She was the preschool teacher for both of my sons.  I have a distant memory of a young version of you at some event for the preschool.  But we don't know each other at all.  I have watched you play.  As a fan, I have definitely cheered loudly for you.  Truthfully, there were times I yelled at you for some mistake you make.  But for the most part, I have just been impressed by you.  Your talent, your poise, your leadership, your guts, your fearlessness, your heart.  You are that kind of athlete that it is easy for a fan to cheer for.  You aren't surly or self-absorbed.  You don't have a long rap sheet of off the field mistakes. You say all the right stuff.  And you win.

You are probably too young to really understand what you mean to a UCF fan.  We have lived in the shadows of the "big boys" of college football for decades.  Twenty years ago we started to build a "real" football team.  We wanted to be taken seriously as a university and knew that it would never happen without that feature.  We went through years and years of playing in the bowels of college football.  Then we went through years and years of close calls - big games where we played valiantly and failed.  Nebraska. Georgia. Mississippi State, Ohio State. We came close so many times, but still lost.  Then we watched as other upstart programs gained the respect we so desperately craved.  Boise State went from being a potato farm to a BCS buster.  East Carolina, Appalachian State, Miami (Ohio).  They all took down the big guys.  And then worst of all, that stinking, no good USF started up a football program after us, raced past us, gained national notoriety, beat the crap out of us, and then dismissed us as a pointless frivolity they needn't be bothered with.

For years, we had to listen to USF fans mouth off at us.  They could win all these big time games.  We never could.  (The fact they consistently lost to teams "beneath them" was conveniently left out of the argument.  But I digress...)  Fans of the big dog schools like UF and FSU and UM were cruel.  They were bullies.  They ridiculed us and ignored us.  We were their "cupcake" scheduling.  It got to be disheartening.  And every time we made a little progress, it seemed like we got beaten back again.

We knew we had potential.  But it started to sound like one of those people on American Idol who swear they "can sing."  We sounded delusional.  Every time we went into a big game and tried to convince people (and ourselves) that we could win, well, they called us crazy.  And it was crazy.  Even when we beat a dominant program (like Alabama), it was when they were in a bad year.  It felt like we were forever stuck in the land of irrelevance.  The final straw was when we finally scratched our way into a BCS conference, it was one that was completely in shambles.

But that was all before you, before this year.  This year, everything changed.  This year, all of those pieces that never quite came together suddenly fit.  All of those nagging weaknesses that had crippled us for years seemed to disappear.  We went into Penn State and won a tough game.  We hosted #6 South Carolina on national television and almost won.  No, we should have won.  Even South Carolina fans admit they got away with that game.  See, I live in Columbia, SC now.  Nobody was crowing after that game up here.  They knew they got lucky.  Then we beat Louisville, even though it seemed impossible.  No game was ever over until the gun went off.  People starting calling UCF the Cardiac Knights.  They pulled most games out of their . . . um . . . armor.  See, we normally lost those games.  There were other years when we had success within our grasp and managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.  That Temple game this year?  The USF one?  The SMU Ice Bowl?  Those are games we would have lost in other years.  But not this team. They never gave up.

Well, you never gave up.  You had that same quality about you that Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck and John Elway had.  When things got tough, when your back was against the wall, you refused to buckle.  Even the South Carolina game was that way.  If the game had another minute in it, we would have been 12-0.  No game was truly lost.  It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

Then came the Fiesta Bowl.  For weeks, people asked me how I thought UCF would do.  I said the same thing.  "Of all of the BCS teams, I think we have the best shot against Baylor.  It will be tough.  But I think we have a chance."  Man, did we.  We beat the most explosive offense in the country by 10 points - even though we had back to back to back turnovers.  There is no explanation for that.  That was the kind of momentum shift that used to kill UCF.  It looked like the South Carolina game.  But that collapse never happened.  That Baylor explosion never came.  And when you came out in the second half and scored on four straight possessions, people all over the country finally realized that UCF truly did belong on the big stage.  And you belonged on the big stage, probably the biggest stage.  Blake Bortles - NFL quarterback.

Most of the discussion in the last few days has been about if you are coming back to UCF next year.  I admit, I am curious as well.  I certainly would love for you to return.  But...

I watched Daunte Culpepper from his first game at UCF to his last.  I remember mentally pleading with him to come back in his senior year to give us a chance to go 11-0.  He did come back, but we never did reach the zenith with him.  Then Kevin Smith came along.  We all psychically urged him to return as well, but he didn't.  He went to the NFL.  Staying may have helped his career, but not his knees.  Here we are again with a superstar.  And the UCF fan in me wants to beg again for you to come back, to possibly take us even farther into our destiny.  But that wouldn't be fair.

You have done more for UCF than we could have imagined.  You have put our entire school on your shoulders and carried us all the way to Glendale and back.  You pulled us those last steps that we never seemed to be able to make.  We are now nationally recognized.  We have gained respect.  UCF is not just a directional Florida school.  It is a team to be reckoned with.  What more could we ask of you?  In my wildest dreams, I think that we could run the table and maybe snag one of those four playoff spots next January.  In more realistic thoughts, I imagine that we will end up in another prestigious bowl with another big payday to invest in the future.  You'll be a Heisman candidate.  We'll have a great year.

Or.... You could get hurt.  God forbid, you could get hurt.  Or we could just as easily lose a few of those nailbiters we won this year.  You could see your draft stock drop like Matt Barkley did.  I don't want that to happen.  So, that is why I am not going to beg you to come back.  I want you to do what is best for you.  I want you to go to the NFL if you think that is the best thing for your future.  I want you to come back if you think the extra experience will help.  But don't come back for us.  You've already given us everything we could ask and more.  If you leave, I will root for you every Sunday.  I'll probably get a "Bortles" jersey.  If you can manage to get picked by the Jaguars, I'll be over the moon happy.  I will support you in the pros just like every UCF alum out there.  Actually, that's not true.  I'll support you more.  That's how fans show their gratitude.

So, thank you for your time at UCF.  Thank you for helping us to believe the crazy can happen.  Thank you for never giving up, even when you could have justified doing that.  And thank you for helping us to know what it feels like to "win the big game."  I wish you all the best - be it in Orlando, Jacksonville, Oakland, or Cleveland.  (Well, I wish you better than Cleveland.)  I'll follow you on Saturdays or Sundays, whatever you choose.  Blake and Gold, all the way.

Your Appreciative Fan,

David

UCFan

On Saturday, we went to a Christmas party for Heather's work.  One of the third year residents had recently gotten married to a "guy from UCF" - that was the extent of my knowledge of the young man.  At one point, they were sitting on the couch and I walked up to ask if they were going to Arizona for UCF's Fiesta Bowl appearance.  They ecstatically answered in the affirmative.  I found out he actually works in the sports marketing department at UCF, which is just so cool to me.  Off and on for the next several hours, I chatted with Ryan about UCF's sports programs.  We watched the Heisman trophy presentation and I asked if he would be working on a Heisman campaign for Blake Bortles, UCF QB, if he comes back next year.  He said he would.  Then we talked about how Blake actually has a tough decision because he could legitimately be a top ten pick in this draft.  This all seemed like a perfectly sane conversation.

Yesterday, I got a text from my friend Candy.  She is a UCF alum, as is her husband, Allen - one of my roommates in college.  We have kept up with them and they are some of our best friends.  While we lived in Orlando, we usually spent New Year's Eve with them at our house.  Our move to Columbia seemed to end that tradition.  Not so fast!  They are going to be traveling for the holidays and will be staying with us over New Year's.  In her text, she said, "Aren't you excited we will be there for the Fiesta Bowl?!?"  I hadn't connected that.  I've watched a ton of UCF games this year, all alone.  The thought of having fellow UCF fans here?  On New Year's Day?  To watch UCF in a bowl game?  Heck yes, I'm excited.  Again, a perfectly sane exchange.

Rewind about 20 years.  I had recently shed my lifelong love of the University of Georgia to firmly align with UCF.  If I was going to spend thousands of dollars at a school to get a degree, I was going to get the most I could out of the experience.  Student tickets to football games were free, so I went to most of the home games.  We were small time football.  There was a big battle on the campus between the academics who felt that a school should rely on its academic achievements alone and those who believe that a strong successful sports program enhances the school as a whole.  The new university President, Dr Hitt, was trying to walk the fine line between sides while pushing what he knew was best - sports is a billboard for the school.  UCF was going to transition to Division I and had to spend a couple years in I-AA.  So our schedule was made up of teams like Garner-Webb and Bethune-Cookman.   We envied powerhouse schools like Georgia Southern and Youngstown State.  There would be louder cheers from the crowd when the UF or FSU scores were announced than when UCF scored.

My senior year, through a bizarre set of circumstances, we landed Daunte Culpepper.  He should have been at a big name school.  But here we were, sitting in the Citrus Bowl, watching someone who was the best player on the field by leaps and bounds.  We almost beat Nebraska in Lincoln, starting an annoying trend of "almost beating" big teams.  Daunte was invited to the Heisman Trophy award ceremony.  He got drafted 11th by the Vikings.  We never even won a I-AA title, but didn't care because it was a just a transitional stage - starting an annoying trend of looking too far ahead and being mediocre where we were.  We got into trouble with the NCAA, starting an annoying trend of being on the wrong side of the law.  And we watched teams like USF pop up and race past us.  It was frustrating to be a UCF fan.  Big schools like UF and FSU didn't take us seriously.  Lesser schools like USF and Bowling Green didn't take us seriously.  Even doody schools like Miami (Ohio) and Marshall didn't take us seriously.  We were just kind of farting around.

Ten years ago, UCF fired Mike Kruczek as head coach.  There was an uproar among some fans because Kruczek was the one who recruited Daunte.  That fact alone had gotten him the head coaching job and kept him there.  And to some, he could have ridden that score forever.  But there was a simple fact at play: we weren't going anywhere as long as we kept Kruczek.  It was the same fact that ultimately led to the firing of Kirk Speraw as basketball coach.  Both of those guys were good coaches.  They mostly had winning teams.  Every so often, we would pop into the postseason in some way - mostly as cannon fodder or a footnote.  But UCF would be terminally trapped in mediocrity.  The school itself was exploding in size and renown.  There was no justifiable reason why a school ranked in the top five nationally in enrollment in a massive sports state like Florida should be putzing around like UCF was.

Just like when Daunte came to town, UCF got lucky again.  George O'Leary had an impressive resume.  He had been named National Coach of the Year while at Georgia Tech.  They went to big bowl games five years in a row.  And he had been hired as coach of Notre Dame.  But his resume was a little TOO good.  It turned out he had said he had a master's degree and had lettered in football.  It was resume padding - something that many people over the years have done to break into the business.  But he didn't remove the padding once he "made it."  And so he was fired.  He ended up getting hired by the Minnesota Vikings as their defensive coordinator, where he led them from 30th in the NFL in defense to 10th.  UCF saw a huge opportunity.  O'Leary was obviously a great coach.  His errors in judgment didn't affect that.  So they jumped and hired O'Leary as their new head coach.  UCF got tons of coverage for the hiring.  They also got tons of coverage the next year, when they went 0-11.  Hardly a promising start.

The first six years or so of O'Leary's tenure was rough to say the least.  UCF would alternate winning records and losing records for six years.  There were some extremely frustrating experiences.  I called for his firing on multiple occasions, especially after USF beat the tar out of us 62-12 in 2007.  I even went so far as to submit some slightly cruel questions to his radio show like "Does living without a soul make you cold?"  We had a major NCAA investigation thanks to our cheating Athletic Director.  A player died during workouts.  It seemed like things would never get better.

But things were getting better.  UCF's graduation rates were among the highest in the nation.  We were being shown on national television.  We actually started to win some of those games we used to "almost win."  There still were maddening failures.  We still always were on the outside looking in with the major conferences.  When we finally got invited to join one, it was the collapsing Big East.  But progress was being made.  We had another Heisman candidate in Kevin Smith.  Former UCF players like Matt Prater, Brandon Marshall, and Josh Sitton were excelling in the NFL.

It seemed like everything clicked this past year.  UCF's affiliation with the Big East (sorry, American Conference) paid off in the final year of the BCS.  There was an automatic bid with a championship to one of the "big bowls" - Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, Rose.  Our homegrown quarterback, Blake Bortles, morphed into a big time college player.  [Side note, Blake's mom was Josiah's and Gabe's preschool teacher.  That certainly makes all of this even more exciting.]  Last year, we almost knocked off Ohio State.  This year, we actually did beat Penn State in their stadium.  We only lost to South Carolina by three and should have won that game.  Living up here, it was interesting to see the nation's opinion of UCF change so rapidly.  The people I encountered up here prior to the game thought it was just another cupcake for Clowney and company to feast upon.  I kept saying they needed to watch out; UCF was better than they thought.  It was a tough game to watch because UCF was the better team.  Time after time they shot themselves in the foot.  USC won, but UCF came storming back and probably would have taken the game if it had gone to overtime.  The thing is, USC fans knew that.  After that, anytime people saw my UCF shirt or license plate, they responded differently.  "Man, you almost got us."  Or, "you guys have a good team this year."  These were SEC people who usually see the rest of the college football landscape as the minor leagues.  They saw UCF as a threat.

That ability to come storming back and never give up became the hallmark of this UCF team.  It felt like we were losing just about every game at some point in the fourth quarter.  No game was ever over until the final gun.  Time and again, UCF came through.  Blake Bortles and the Defense refused to let UCF lose.  We knocked off eighth ranked, undefeated Louisville in their house on a Thursday night on ESPN.  We were on ESPN for four games and ABC for the first time ever.  UCF ended up 11-1, undefeated in conference play, ranked 15th, and in the Fiesta Bowl against Baylor.  Less than twenty years after saying "How could we possibly expect to beat Youngstown State? They are a national power."  Ten years after being ranked dead last in the NCAA Division I.  We were playing in a BCS bowl.  We had a nationally ranked team.  We had another Heisman candidate, with a real shot at starting in the NFL.

An interesting statistic was mentioned during the Blizzard Bowl against SMU last week.  The few seniors UCF have (just seven) finished their college career with 37 wins in their four years - an average of 9 wins a year.  They actually won 11, 5, 10, and 11 games.  How does 37 wins across the last four years stack up?  Let us see.

• Florida - 30 wins
• FSU - 40 wins
• USF - 18 wins
• Miami - 29 wins
• Texas - 30 wins
• South Carolina - 41 wins
• USC - 34 wins

Let's just say it isn't bad.  UCF and George O'Leary has built something in Orlando.  The most impressive thing about this team is that there were only seven seniors.  UCF should be better next year.  Do you mind if I type that again?  It's my blog, so I can do what I want.  UCF should be better next year.  There are a bunch of assumptions to that statement.  Blake Bortles could go pro, which would effectively render that line of thinking moot.  The American Conference isn't going to be much better next year.  Louisville is leaving for greener pastures.  And our non-conference games are even better next year.  Missouri, BYU, and Penn State IN IRELAND!!!  That guarantees several nationally televised games.  We obviously will get a lot of coverage for the Fiesta Bowl.  And if we beat Baylor....

That is the wonderful thing about being a UCF fan right now.  We've been through a lot over the years.  Finally having success feels so good.  But having hope as a fan is even better.  Is it crazy to say we could beat Baylor?  Oh yeah.  But, at this point, crazy isn't so crazy any more.  Who would have thought we could beat Penn State or Louisville this year?  Or what about hanging in there with South Carolina to where we gave the game away, which is entirely different than getting beaten outright?   Who would have thought we would be 11-1 or in a BCS bowl or ranked 15 or anything that happened this year?  It is all crazy.  So, talking about beating Baylor has become a perfectly sane conversation.