Weekend Roundup

They had it.

We were thisclose to a true Big Five -- for one week, anyway. UCF had it.

They had Texas on the freaking ropes.

It was opening day at the new on-campus Bright House Networks Stadium, and the atmosphere was completely electric. Even Texas coach Mack Brown admitted that his kids "didn't understand what they were about to get into." Maybe, despite Brown's pregame warning, the Longhorn players overlooked this "directional school" in Orlando, came out flat, and got the living bejeezus scared out of them. For that matter, maybe Texas is simply overrated, a topic we plan to discuss on Monday night's 'Tailgate Overtime' on Sun Sports. Perhaps the Knights simply played out of their minds. I don't know, and it doesn't matter.

UCF had this game in hand, and they lost it.

You have to feel bad for senior quarterback Kyle Israel, an Orlando kid from nearby University High School, who picked the wrong time to have a miserable game. Nine-for-26, 134 yards, an interception returned for a TD in the second quarter, a fumble in the 4th that led to one final rally-killing Texas score. Still, you cannot hang this game on Israel -- UCF was powerless against the run, giving up 229 yards on the ground. Offensively, the Knights are still searching for playmaking receivers, having lost Mike Walker to Jacksonville in the 2007 NFL Draft. There are holes to fill, and not just at QB.

You can, however, feel pretty good about running back Kevin Smith, who followed his career-high 217-yard rushing performance against N.C. State with another 149 yards and two TD's against mighty Texas. Smith currently leads the nation in rushing (!) at 183 yards per game and gives the Knights much hope in Conference USA. We can debate Tim Tebow vs. Matt Grothe all day long for best quarterback in the state, but when it comes to the best running back, there's no argument: Kevin Smith.

Mike Bianchi called the UCF game a "victorious defeat." Tim Brando, who was anchoring in the CBS studio during the Florida-Tennessee game and provided periodic updates on the UCF-Texas game, opined that "nobody wants a piece of any 'directional school' in Florida right now."

For that, I will forgive him for saying that the UCF game was taking place "just down I-95 from Gainesville."

Umm, Tim? It's I-75. Get off at the Turnpike, take that to the East-West, go east for half an hour. UCF is on the left. Can't miss it. I'll get you a map.

What I will not forgive, however, is CBS's use of the phrase "Central Florida Golden Knights" on its scoreboards. Over the last few seasons, UCF has made a very big deal about being referred to as "UCF." They despise the term "Central Florida" because of that very "directional school" stigma. This fact is hammered home repeatedly in every scrap of literature that comes out of the school's sports information department, all of which insist, in no uncertain terms, that "Central Florida," "C. Fla.," "Central Fla.," or any such permutation of same won't cut it. It's "UCF," or don't bother knockin'. As a media outlet, you really have to work hard to miss this.

Yet, CBS's scoreboard updates not only read "Central Florida," but failed to drop "Golden" in front of "Knights," another point that has been impossible to miss. Perhaps the national networks will catch on once the UCF Knights jump to a BCS conference in the near future.

One more note on the UCF-Texas game: George O'Leary owes Jeannine Edwards an apology.

Edwards was the sideline reporter for the ESPN broadcast of the UCF-Texas game, and at halftime, she pulled O'Leary aside for a quick comment on the first half. When the coach casually mentioned that he might pull Israel in the second half, she did the only thing anyone in her position could possibly do, which was attempt a follow-up question. In other words, she did her job.

O'Leary responded with a blurted "thank you" and jogged away from her, on live television. Edwards was left to sigh "good luck" and awkwardly throw it back to the booth. It was painful.

Look, I've done a gazillion halftime interviews, and they pretty much all suck. However, they're part of the deal when playing a big game on television, and O'Leary, no matter how hard he was working, no matter how invested he was in the game, was wrong to hang her out to dry like that. If you think UCF is big-time, Coach, you gotta act big-time. And that means respect for the national TV network that is spending 50 grand in production trucks, crew, talent, travel, and pregame buffet to come to your new stadium to televise a game that they were pretty sure would be a blowout anyway. Hell, they even visually identified your school graphically as "UCF" all day long, as instructed, even though 80 percent of the audience would likely have no clue who "UCF" was.

Other than that, a nearly perfect showing by Central Florida -- sorry, UCF -- on Saturday.

Other notes from the weekend:

--Tim Tebow had more carries against Tennessee (18) than pass completions (14), and the Gators still hung 59 points on the Vols -- without Andre Caldwell. Chew on that one for a while. They've scored 38 points or more in 5 straight games, including last year's SEC Championship Game, the BCS Championship Game, and their first three this season. They're #2 in the country in scoring offense at just over 55 points per game, and their defense just held Tennessee to 37 net yards rushing and one offensive touchdown. Scary, but probably not enough to jump Southern Cal or LSU in this week's coaches' poll. Which says as much about those two programs as it does about the stupidity of any poll that comes out before October.

--Florida Atlantic released the clutch on Minnesota this weekend to the tune of 580 yards of offense (463 through the air) and five passing touchdowns. It was FAU's first-ever win against a Big Ten opponent -- impressive, especially when you consider that Minnesota beat the Owls 46-7 just two years ago. By the way, FAU plays South Florida at home on October 6th, and the Owls get the Gators in Gainesville on November 17th. Did those two games just get a little more interesting?

--With a 10pm eastern time kickoff on Saturday night (which was subsequently pushed back to 10:15 eastern by ESPN), Florida State's longest road trip of the year at Colorado didn't finish until roughly 1:45 in the morning in Florida. Perhaps that's for the best -- after one Antone Smith TD run and three Gary Cismesia field goals allowed FSU to upend the hapless Buffs 16-6, new Seminole offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher let the boys have it:

"The most ridiculous demonstration of football I've been around in my life...I'm going to tell you what, if I'm an offensive player, I'm embarrassed. Our defense won that football game. It's ridiculous the mistakes we keep making."

Then he let himself have it for a moment, before returning his players to their seats under the bus:

"It's my fault. It starts with me. If you ain't coaching it, you're letting it happen. We're going to find 11 guys who want to do it. We'll start on Tuesday when we get back, I promise you."

Due to the obscenely late kickoff, we did not produce a live postgame show for Florida State on Saturday night, something that had concerned me all week. The logic, as it was explained to me, was sound: little or no chance for an East Coast audience at 2 in the morning, costs outweighing benefits (both to us and to our sponsors), and an upcoming live pregame show on September 29th prior to the FSU-Alabama game in Jacksonville that would balance out the studio schedule. That's fine and dandy, but I've been doing this for a long time, and I was certain that somebody would make a stink. I voiced those concerns during the week to a few people at Sun Sports, and we agreed that we would share the backlash together.

By Sunday morning, however, there was nothing. Instead, I found this thread on Warchant.com, one of the most active FSU message boards, wherein some courageous Seminole fan who actually stayed up until 2am wondered why we were re-airing the Gator Postgame at that hour and not producing a live Seminole Postgame.

The replies from his fellow insomniacs:

"They probably fell asleep watching those offenses."

"Can you blame them??"

"I'm grateful that they are sparing us the [humiliation] of seeing that disgraceful offensive performance tonight."

Ouch. And, umm...you're welcome?