By J. Daniel Pearson
For Positively Osceola
Could payback be a bitch for the South Florida Bulls?
With the recent news reports that the Big 12 is about to extend invitations to UCF and three other schools, you can’t help but wonder what is going to happen to the football rivalry between the Knights and the University of South Florida. If you remember, it wasn’t that long ago that South Florida was dominating the series. On Oct. 13, 2007, South Florida won its fourth in a row – hammering UCF 64-12. About the same time, many Knight fans were openly accusing USF of purposely blocking them from joining the Big East—a notion USF administrators “vigorously” discredited (props to then USF President Judy Genshaft for keeping a straight face with those denials). At the same time, many pompous Bull fans were questioning the need for South Florida to even play the lowly Knights at all. That all changed when the Big East expanded and admitted UCF as a member in 2013. Fast forward to today and those programs are headed on two entirely opposite trajectories. The Knights are now on path to join a power five and reap the benefits of many more millions in broadcast dollars, they play in their own on-campus facility to near sellout crowds, they have been to New Year’s Days bowls, have finished in the top 10 rankings, and have beaten the Bulls four straight games; meanwhile South Florida’s program has floundered of late – winning just five total games since 2018. USF is also going to be stuck in what will become a watered down American Athletic Conference, and they are currently playing before sparse crowds as a secondary tenant at Raymond James Stadium. Once the schools are in two different conferences, the only way this series will continue is if the Knights agree to make South Florida part of its non-conference schedule and that’s where things could get dicey for the Bulls. Given what has transpired, will UCF let bygones be bygones and keep the series going (they actually should for many reasons) or will they take something out of the Florida Gator Playbook and inform the Bulls they need to drop them in favor of a “more national schedule?”…
Speaking of College Football Playoff some new blood may be coming this year. Clemson— who has been in the last six postseason tournaments—may have already eliminated itself from playoff consideration after that Week One loss to Georgia on Saturday night. If the Tigers run the table from here, the selection committee could easily say “So What?” There is no Notre Dame in the league this year and for the first time ever, every ranked ACC teams lost on the opening weekend. As the season starts to wind, there doesn’t appear to whole lot of “resume builders” left on Clemson’s schedule. Add in fan fatigue of seeing the same teams every year (yes, I know that is not an official selection criteria) and I could see Clemson having little chance of rebounding and claiming a spot in the CFP…
The Giants (1), Dodgers (2), Astros (4) and Yankees (5) are all ranked near the top of Major League Baseball’s power rankings. They are also ranked in the top 10 in major league payrolls, all spending between $160 million or more per team, with the Dodgers leading the way with a $267 million payroll. The fact that Tampa Bay, which is ranked third in the power rankings, has the fourth lowest payroll in all of baseball at $70 million says a lot about the job field boss Kevin Cash and General Manager Erik Neander have done with that team. The Rays were tied for the best record in all of baseball into yesterday’s play, despite suffering a slew of injuries this season that included the loss of ace pitcher Tyler Glasnow for the year. In all, the Rays have used 33 pitchers and 21 position players through the start of September…
One reason for the Rays success has been the meteoric rise of shortstop Wander Franco. After his June 22 call-up to the big leagues, Franco was hitting just .200 in his first month of the season – leaving some to wonder if he was truly ready for the show and others questioning how wise it was to trade away Wily Adames, who was hitting a robust .288 with 17 home runs since being traded to Milwaukee. Those questions were answered quickly, as Franco has already started to show that he going to be a star. In his last 27 games, Franco is hitting .322 and has been playing spectacular defense. When he collected a couple of hits on Saturday, he extended his consecutive on-base streak to 34 — the second longest for a American League player under 21 years old since Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle reached base in 36 consecutive games split between the 1951-52 seasons…
A scary “growing older” thought for you to ponder. The Jetson’s TV Cartoon was set in the year 2062. We are a lot closer to that futuristic year, than we are to the year when George Jetson, his wife Jane, daughter Judy and his boy Elroy first appeared on TV, which was 1962…
On a recent plane trip, a young lady struck up a conversation with a gentlemen sitting next to her. When he asked what she did, the young lady mentioned that she was a runner. Excited to talk to a fellow runner, the man proceeded to explain to her this new training program he was following and suggested that if she was truly a serious runner like him, she should consider using it. Not wanting to be rude, the women just said she would look into it — not having the heart to tell him she was Molly Seidel, a 10-time NCAA distance running champion and had just finished third in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. She also could have added that she devised and wrote the training program the man was touting…
During the start of spring football practice last May, both Don Simon and Bryan Smart – the respective head football coaches at Harmony and St. Cloud – both expressed how nice it was to get back to “normal” as it appeared the Covid pandemic was coming to an end. I don’t think either coach foresaw what was coming, as six of the county’s eight public schools—including St. Cloud and Harmony — saw their opening games last weekend cancelled; while Simon had to sit as home this past Friday after testing positive for Covid earlier in the week as his team came up with a thrilling 17-14 win over Heritage…
Being a child of the 60s, I feel sorry that today’s youngsters will never understand the poignant self-satisfaction of ending an angry telephone conversation by slamming a phone down on the cradle…
Rumors continue to abound that LSU head football coach Ed Orgeron could be removed in mid-season if the Tigers get off to a bad start. Since taking over the program, the man has gone 45-14 overall, has a 28-12 record (.700 winning percentage) in the ridiculously tough SEC, and is a little more than a season removed from a 15-0 National Championship season. While I understand the “win now” thought process of modern fans, I would ask how many SEC coaches not named Nick Saban have a better record than Ogeron? While Saban has been single-handedly been responsible for getting SEC coaches multi-million dollar contracts, he has also been single-handedly responsible for getting a ton of those same coaches fired…
Y’all Have a Great Week.
By J. Daniel Pearson
For Positively Osceola
J. Daniel Pearson, a long-time resident of Osceola County, has joined Positively Osceola as a freelance contributor. His JD’s Monday Morning Musings column will be a regular feature and he will be covering events for us throughout the year. Dan is a former Public Relations Specialist for Florida State University, Boardwalk and Baseball, the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, the Orlando Predators, and other professional sports teams and has been a freelance reporter to many newspapers in the state.
