It finally happened people! It's hard to believe that just a few years ago in 2015, our alma mater's football team managed to do something unthinkable. Go 0 and 12. Yeah. That's a perfect season. A perfect failing season. They lost every single game they played. Every. Single. Game. It was a rough year to be a UCF fan... but we don't do fair weather around these parts (at least in our home) so we stuck it out. We watched those games and figured one day it would turn around. And boy did it! Just two years later in 2017, UCF went undefeated. 13-0. The truly perfect season. The Colly Matrix even declared them the National Champion so they claimed it alongside the powerhouse of football, Bama. (That's right... you can blame the NCAA for our refusal to shut up about it.) It was a fun year. Steven and I were even at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on January 1, 2018 to watch UCF beat Auburn. It was a game I won't soon forget.
Fast forward through off season to the current football season. UCF has a new coach, has started moving not only UCFast but in "Hueper drive" and is currently sitting undefeated for the season. Not all the games have been pretty. It's true. We aren't afraid to admit that we often feel last year's team was better overall, but they have gotten it done so far this year. UCF fans have not sat idly by and watched our team go 22-0. They have started to cause quite a ruckus. And boy does it irritate other teams' fanbases. They have been fighting to break the glass ceiling and enter the top 10 with the CFP all season. After causing enough stir this year, it finally happened. ESPN College Gameday decided to take the trip down to the City Beautiful and visit us here in Orlando. UCF boasts the second largest university in the country in enrollment though I think we are currently #1 for freshman or something like that. It changes so often that I can't keep track anymore. For anyone that has never seen our campus, it is beautiful. UCF has amazing academic programs. And, oh yeah, not just a winning football team. Some people don't realize that there are other sports kicking butt and taking names this year. Women's Volleyball just won the AAC championship. Cheerleading consistently performs as one of the top teams in the country every year. Baseball has to play in one of the hardest conferences for baseball and usually does fairly well. Men's soccer made it to the AAC final but unfortunately fell to SMU. Even UCF's tennis players are raking in the titles. Basketball just won a small tournament that I can't remember the name of right now and despite falling to FAU a few games back, they are doing really well. (And can we mention that UCF holds the distinction of consistently being near or even at the top of APR or Academic Progress Rate each year. Apparently that APR looks at retention, graduation, and eligibility. Out of a perfect 1,000 score, a few of our athletic teams hit 1,000 and most are way up in the 900s.)
We are proud AlumKnights around here. So, when Gameday announced it was coming to UCF, we immediately started planning our signs. We figured we should take the kids out to what could be a once in a lifetime thing. Let's hope it isn't. Let's hope UCF continues to kick butt and take names. Maybe even start showing up more consistently as a team to be reckoned with. A team that Gameday may visit again... but who knows. So we jumped at the chance to celebrate our university and our UCF Football team with a bunch of fellow Knight students, alumni, and fans alike.
We woke up about 5:30 and got ready. At 6 we pulled the kids out of bed (okay, they jumped out of bed... they are early risers and were super excited so it wasn't a huge deal) and got them dressed then loaded up in the car with jackets and signs. We hit up McDonalds on the way to UCF for a quick breakfast and were on campus and parked by 7:30. I admit, initially I was a bit concerned that people weren't showing up. Parking seemed way too easy and although there were a lot of people milling around, it didn't seem as crowded as I expected.
I stopped to take a few pictures with the Gameday bus with the kids while Steven went to see what the pit situation was like. We knew we would never get into the pit and we really didn't have an urge with the kids in tow, but we wanted to see what it was like. It was already packed and there was no way we were getting close to it. We decided to walk back towards the back of the crowd to figure out where we wanted to stand. We were following the lines that carried the overhead camera through the crowd because we knew if we hung out nearby, that was probably our best chance of getting on TV. As we were walking along, we heard Steven's name be called. Lo and behold we ran into a friend that is also a UCF alum and her boyfriend. Yay! Friends! In a sea of black and gold and thousands of other people. How on earth do we do this?! (We ran into the same friend at the Peach Bowl in January and were sitting one section over from her. We have weird UCF Football connections and always end up seeing each other at those types of events. Haha!) They were set up near a small stage in the middle of the crowd where a couple of random segments would take place later in the show so we decided we would hang out with them. Kenzie took to Kelly (our friend) right away despite not seeing her in years and bless Kelly for letting Kenzie hang all over her for a couple of hours. I have pretty great friends. It was nice being with people we knew so we had others to chat with but it wasn't long before we were chatting with all the other friends around us too. It was just a group of super excited, passionate, friendly UCF fans.
We hung out and waited for the show before the big show to start. We knew they would do a few shots of UCF during the show before Gameday (Sportscenter, I think). It was funny. We would be fairly quiet (for a crowd of thousands) until we were alerted they were going to a live shot and then everyone got crazy. Signs went up, people yelled. So electric. I've never experienced anything quite like it. There were so many signs. So. Many. Signs. The Gameday hosts actually said that they think we probably set a sign record for Gameday. UCF fans had a lot to say. We had two signs ourselves. One anti-Cincinnati since that is who UCF was taking on later in the day. And one anti-USF because who can convince trolling your rival school when you get to have Gameday on your own campus for the first time?
Finally, it was time for the show to actually start. It was madness. Really, it was very well controlled chaos. I was worried with the kids that people around us would have issues but it worked out so well. The couple near us said they had a 3-year-old so they were used to things like Will randomly laying on the ground under their feet. Another group of people offered the kids donuts at one point so they were new best friends. We couldn't hear the show itself and couldn't see the big screens that well but we would randomly get the gist of what was going on based on the crowds cheers or boos. Every time the camera flew over us, we would yell and hold up our signs. Kenzie was the most excited with this. She was short and doesn't really like sitting on our shoulders so her sign never made it on TV but she tried. She tried so hard.
Finally we got word from our favorite producer, Todd (his name was on his headset so it wasn't long before the chants for him were taken up by our nearby crowd... we even tried to get him a raise but no one else was buying it), told the guy (Jonas, I think) manning the stage by us that the "talent" would be coming out soon for the segment out there. Score! We positioned ourselves in the best place possible to get our signs seen and waited. Finally, it was time. We decided to hand the sign to our tallest member, Steven so it may make it on TV. The kids handled this entire thing like champs. People started to push in closer to the stage (though no one was rude or too pushy and they all gave room to the kids to a point) and the producers cleared a way for David Pollack and Maria Taylor which gave us even less room. The kids were basically under my legs. I held each kid for a few minutes but they never argued or complained. I was very surprised to be honest. It's sort of surreal seeing these people you watch on TV every week come by and record you as the fans chanting "U-C-F" or "Black - Gold". Eventually the segment was recorded and Steven's phone immediately blew up. Apparently he was noticed on TV. Our pastor at church even posted a pic he had taken on his TV of Steven showing up during the segment. Later when we got home, we watched the broadcast and found where the segment was. Sure enough, there is Steven and if you look really close, you can see Will and me for a second.
While all this was going on another contributor/analyst whose name I have totally forgotten because he isn't one of the main ones was standing next to us waiting for this segment to end so he could go on the stage and do his own segment and Kenzie spent about 3 or 4 minutes randomly hitting him in the head with her sign. Oops. To his credit, we apologized and he would turn around but didn't say anything. So, sorry ESPN dude. Welcome to Orlando. (The sign was a Dollar Tree foam board and didn't weigh hardly anything so it wasn't like she was actually hurting him.) We did eventually get her to stop trying to lift the sign over her head so she wouldn't hit anyone else. The area was just too crowded and since she wasn't tall enough to put it higher, she was hitting people with it on accident.
Finally all of this ended and the "talent" (it cracks me up that they referred to them like that) went back to other areas of Gameday. We looked over and Will had curled himself into a ball on the ground. It was an early start that morning so we knew the kids were done. We decided that making it 3 hours in this crowd was pretty good for a 6 and 4 year old so we called it. We walked around campus a bit checking out the bookstore and what not before finally heading home. It was such a fun experience. I am so glad we decided to go. We actually debated it for a while earlier in the week because we knew we had a Girl Scout event that evening and didn't know how the kids would handle a day like that. But it all worked out and the kids are still talking about Gameday. Kenzie has been very interested in where they are stopping next. Haha!
Like I said, we recorded the broadcast and watched it back when we got home. Watching Corso come out in not only Knightro's head but the full outfit was a bit surreal. He is a fellow Orlandoan (not sure if that is a thing and he technically lives in Lake Mary but you get what I mean) so we had high hopes for him and he certainly didn't disappoint. One of my favorite signs said "I rode here in an Uber with Corso". Later, watching the game, it seemed like the team and the fanbase even converted (at least a bit) our biggest naysayer, Herbie. He later said on twitter something about how much he enjoyed UCF. The fans showed up loud and proud for the game. We had to listen to most of the first quarter in the car on the way home from our GS event and then watched it back on TV as we recorded that too. We had season tickets for years and I cannot remember ever seeing the Bounce House that electric. It was so loud! The UCF defense later said that the tackle for Cincy would have to tap the center on every play because he couldn't hear the quarterback's calls for the snap. Herbie mentioned that he wondered if the place would actually sway like he had been told and every time they showed them in the broadcast booth you could tell that the entire place was rocking. UCF basically got a 3 hour infomercial in the morning showcasing the campus. They even managed to mention a few of my favorite random UCF facts during the game later. For instance, did you know the 50 yard like of Spectrum Stadium is perfectly aligned with Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A exactly 31 miles to the East? I mean. Come on. Can you get any cooler? I love this university.
A fan was (reportedly) told by one of the producers during the broadcast that UCF was one of the most exciting Gamedays he could remember doing and that the fans as a whole were very polite and passionate without being rude. There is also talk that UCF may have blown away the previous attendance record for a Gameday. The prior record was 18k people. UCF has been estimated at 20-22k but I haven't seen final numbers on that yet. What a way to represent! I'm proud of our alma mater and how the fanbase handled such a big deal for us. I know this isn't anything major for many schools but to UCF, this was big. And so much fun. Let's hope we get to do it again one of these days.
Fast forward through off season to the current football season. UCF has a new coach, has started moving not only UCFast but in "Hueper drive" and is currently sitting undefeated for the season. Not all the games have been pretty. It's true. We aren't afraid to admit that we often feel last year's team was better overall, but they have gotten it done so far this year. UCF fans have not sat idly by and watched our team go 22-0. They have started to cause quite a ruckus. And boy does it irritate other teams' fanbases. They have been fighting to break the glass ceiling and enter the top 10 with the CFP all season. After causing enough stir this year, it finally happened. ESPN College Gameday decided to take the trip down to the City Beautiful and visit us here in Orlando. UCF boasts the second largest university in the country in enrollment though I think we are currently #1 for freshman or something like that. It changes so often that I can't keep track anymore. For anyone that has never seen our campus, it is beautiful. UCF has amazing academic programs. And, oh yeah, not just a winning football team. Some people don't realize that there are other sports kicking butt and taking names this year. Women's Volleyball just won the AAC championship. Cheerleading consistently performs as one of the top teams in the country every year. Baseball has to play in one of the hardest conferences for baseball and usually does fairly well. Men's soccer made it to the AAC final but unfortunately fell to SMU. Even UCF's tennis players are raking in the titles. Basketball just won a small tournament that I can't remember the name of right now and despite falling to FAU a few games back, they are doing really well. (And can we mention that UCF holds the distinction of consistently being near or even at the top of APR or Academic Progress Rate each year. Apparently that APR looks at retention, graduation, and eligibility. Out of a perfect 1,000 score, a few of our athletic teams hit 1,000 and most are way up in the 900s.)
We are proud AlumKnights around here. So, when Gameday announced it was coming to UCF, we immediately started planning our signs. We figured we should take the kids out to what could be a once in a lifetime thing. Let's hope it isn't. Let's hope UCF continues to kick butt and take names. Maybe even start showing up more consistently as a team to be reckoned with. A team that Gameday may visit again... but who knows. So we jumped at the chance to celebrate our university and our UCF Football team with a bunch of fellow Knight students, alumni, and fans alike.
We woke up about 5:30 and got ready. At 6 we pulled the kids out of bed (okay, they jumped out of bed... they are early risers and were super excited so it wasn't a huge deal) and got them dressed then loaded up in the car with jackets and signs. We hit up McDonalds on the way to UCF for a quick breakfast and were on campus and parked by 7:30. I admit, initially I was a bit concerned that people weren't showing up. Parking seemed way too easy and although there were a lot of people milling around, it didn't seem as crowded as I expected.
I stopped to take a few pictures with the Gameday bus with the kids while Steven went to see what the pit situation was like. We knew we would never get into the pit and we really didn't have an urge with the kids in tow, but we wanted to see what it was like. It was already packed and there was no way we were getting close to it. We decided to walk back towards the back of the crowd to figure out where we wanted to stand. We were following the lines that carried the overhead camera through the crowd because we knew if we hung out nearby, that was probably our best chance of getting on TV. As we were walking along, we heard Steven's name be called. Lo and behold we ran into a friend that is also a UCF alum and her boyfriend. Yay! Friends! In a sea of black and gold and thousands of other people. How on earth do we do this?! (We ran into the same friend at the Peach Bowl in January and were sitting one section over from her. We have weird UCF Football connections and always end up seeing each other at those types of events. Haha!) They were set up near a small stage in the middle of the crowd where a couple of random segments would take place later in the show so we decided we would hang out with them. Kenzie took to Kelly (our friend) right away despite not seeing her in years and bless Kelly for letting Kenzie hang all over her for a couple of hours. I have pretty great friends. It was nice being with people we knew so we had others to chat with but it wasn't long before we were chatting with all the other friends around us too. It was just a group of super excited, passionate, friendly UCF fans.
We hung out and waited for the show before the big show to start. We knew they would do a few shots of UCF during the show before Gameday (Sportscenter, I think). It was funny. We would be fairly quiet (for a crowd of thousands) until we were alerted they were going to a live shot and then everyone got crazy. Signs went up, people yelled. So electric. I've never experienced anything quite like it. There were so many signs. So. Many. Signs. The Gameday hosts actually said that they think we probably set a sign record for Gameday. UCF fans had a lot to say. We had two signs ourselves. One anti-Cincinnati since that is who UCF was taking on later in the day. And one anti-USF because who can convince trolling your rival school when you get to have Gameday on your own campus for the first time?
Finally, it was time for the show to actually start. It was madness. Really, it was very well controlled chaos. I was worried with the kids that people around us would have issues but it worked out so well. The couple near us said they had a 3-year-old so they were used to things like Will randomly laying on the ground under their feet. Another group of people offered the kids donuts at one point so they were new best friends. We couldn't hear the show itself and couldn't see the big screens that well but we would randomly get the gist of what was going on based on the crowds cheers or boos. Every time the camera flew over us, we would yell and hold up our signs. Kenzie was the most excited with this. She was short and doesn't really like sitting on our shoulders so her sign never made it on TV but she tried. She tried so hard.
Finally we got word from our favorite producer, Todd (his name was on his headset so it wasn't long before the chants for him were taken up by our nearby crowd... we even tried to get him a raise but no one else was buying it), told the guy (Jonas, I think) manning the stage by us that the "talent" would be coming out soon for the segment out there. Score! We positioned ourselves in the best place possible to get our signs seen and waited. Finally, it was time. We decided to hand the sign to our tallest member, Steven so it may make it on TV. The kids handled this entire thing like champs. People started to push in closer to the stage (though no one was rude or too pushy and they all gave room to the kids to a point) and the producers cleared a way for David Pollack and Maria Taylor which gave us even less room. The kids were basically under my legs. I held each kid for a few minutes but they never argued or complained. I was very surprised to be honest. It's sort of surreal seeing these people you watch on TV every week come by and record you as the fans chanting "U-C-F" or "Black - Gold". Eventually the segment was recorded and Steven's phone immediately blew up. Apparently he was noticed on TV. Our pastor at church even posted a pic he had taken on his TV of Steven showing up during the segment. Later when we got home, we watched the broadcast and found where the segment was. Sure enough, there is Steven and if you look really close, you can see Will and me for a second.
While all this was going on another contributor/analyst whose name I have totally forgotten because he isn't one of the main ones was standing next to us waiting for this segment to end so he could go on the stage and do his own segment and Kenzie spent about 3 or 4 minutes randomly hitting him in the head with her sign. Oops. To his credit, we apologized and he would turn around but didn't say anything. So, sorry ESPN dude. Welcome to Orlando. (The sign was a Dollar Tree foam board and didn't weigh hardly anything so it wasn't like she was actually hurting him.) We did eventually get her to stop trying to lift the sign over her head so she wouldn't hit anyone else. The area was just too crowded and since she wasn't tall enough to put it higher, she was hitting people with it on accident.
Finally all of this ended and the "talent" (it cracks me up that they referred to them like that) went back to other areas of Gameday. We looked over and Will had curled himself into a ball on the ground. It was an early start that morning so we knew the kids were done. We decided that making it 3 hours in this crowd was pretty good for a 6 and 4 year old so we called it. We walked around campus a bit checking out the bookstore and what not before finally heading home. It was such a fun experience. I am so glad we decided to go. We actually debated it for a while earlier in the week because we knew we had a Girl Scout event that evening and didn't know how the kids would handle a day like that. But it all worked out and the kids are still talking about Gameday. Kenzie has been very interested in where they are stopping next. Haha!
Like I said, we recorded the broadcast and watched it back when we got home. Watching Corso come out in not only Knightro's head but the full outfit was a bit surreal. He is a fellow Orlandoan (not sure if that is a thing and he technically lives in Lake Mary but you get what I mean) so we had high hopes for him and he certainly didn't disappoint. One of my favorite signs said "I rode here in an Uber with Corso". Later, watching the game, it seemed like the team and the fanbase even converted (at least a bit) our biggest naysayer, Herbie. He later said on twitter something about how much he enjoyed UCF. The fans showed up loud and proud for the game. We had to listen to most of the first quarter in the car on the way home from our GS event and then watched it back on TV as we recorded that too. We had season tickets for years and I cannot remember ever seeing the Bounce House that electric. It was so loud! The UCF defense later said that the tackle for Cincy would have to tap the center on every play because he couldn't hear the quarterback's calls for the snap. Herbie mentioned that he wondered if the place would actually sway like he had been told and every time they showed them in the broadcast booth you could tell that the entire place was rocking. UCF basically got a 3 hour infomercial in the morning showcasing the campus. They even managed to mention a few of my favorite random UCF facts during the game later. For instance, did you know the 50 yard like of Spectrum Stadium is perfectly aligned with Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A exactly 31 miles to the East? I mean. Come on. Can you get any cooler? I love this university.
A fan was (reportedly) told by one of the producers during the broadcast that UCF was one of the most exciting Gamedays he could remember doing and that the fans as a whole were very polite and passionate without being rude. There is also talk that UCF may have blown away the previous attendance record for a Gameday. The prior record was 18k people. UCF has been estimated at 20-22k but I haven't seen final numbers on that yet. What a way to represent! I'm proud of our alma mater and how the fanbase handled such a big deal for us. I know this isn't anything major for many schools but to UCF, this was big. And so much fun. Let's hope we get to do it again one of these days.
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