UCF’s Heupel fires up team
Bianchi: ‘If you’re juiceless, you’re useless!’ is Knights’ rallying cry.
Running off at the typewriter. … UCF coach Josh Heupel has a message and mantra for his team about playing in the calm, muted, dispassionate atmosphere of mostly empty stadiums during this COVID-quieted season.
“If you’re juiceless, you’re useless!” Heupel said on our Open Mike radio show earlier this week as the Knights prepared for Saturday’s season opener against Georgia Tech.
“Our guys gotta bring their own energy.”
ESPN NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy got wind of Heupel’s comment and, when broadcasting Game 7 of the Denver Nuggets-LA Clippers series from within the Disney bubble, relayed the phrase while describing the lackluster Clippers.
Said Van Gundy: “You know I heard this quote today from the University of Central Florida
football coach: ‘If you’re juiceless, you’re useless!’ The Clippers have to find some juice to ignite their offense.”
Unfortunately for Doc Rivers and his team, they never did, but hopefully the rest of us can find some inspiration from Heupel’s words. During these often-depressing, economically-challenging, pandemicravaged times, when many of us are still working remotely from home, we all need to self-motivate and squeeze as much energy as we can from within ourselves
Whether it’s your job, your marriage, your family or your faith, if you’re juiceless, you’re useless.
And as long as we’re on the topic, I wonder what Coach Heupel would say if somebody stole all of his Springsteen albums? … If you’re Bruceless, you’re useless!
Or what he would say if Bullwinkle cartoons never existed? … If you’re mooseless, you’re useless!
Or what did he say as a kid when he couldn’t find his copy of “The Cat in the Hat?” … If your Seussless, you’re useless! I’ll be here all week.
Don’t forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses. …
Mail bonding
Best reader email of the week hit my inbox in relation to my column on some local football parents objecting to Orange County Public Schools mandating COVID-19 testing for all high school football players: “Varsity football players are the only people in the county to be mandated to be tested and who were mandated to use LaunchEd virtual learning. No ability to make those decisions for themselves. Kids are close to each other at school and other sports every day, but varsity football is the only group of people mandated by the county to take these measures. …” – Rob
Rob: The reason football is being singled out is because of the physical nature of the sport and because there are 40 or 50 players on a typical high school football team. OCPS is simply playing the percentages, but there’s no question that OCPS’ system has more holes in it than FSU’s offensive line.
Short stuff
North Carolina had its only nonconference game against Charlotte canceled this weekend because Charlotte didn’t have enough offensive linemen due to COVID-19. Just think, what if the ACC had not implemented the silly rule league schools could only play nonconference games at home? UNC could have preserved its schedule and opened the season against UCF as originally planned, and we would have had a marquee matchup pitting the No. 14 Knights versus the No. 12 Tar Heels with two of the country’s hot, young quarterbacks going head to head. …
Question for the Big Ten: Do you want some chicken with those waffles? As a college football fan, I’m ecstatic the Big Ten is back up and running, but the league’s reasoning for why it waffled, wavered and flipflopped on its decision to play this fall was laughable. League officials made it sound as if COVID-19 medical advances in recent weeks were the chief reason they did an abrupt about-face. Really? Seriously?
What — did Dr. Fauci tell Big Ten presidents about some COVID breakthrough the rest of us still don’t know about? Let’s be honest, shall we: The reason the Big Ten changed its mind is because of public pressure (from coaches, players, fans, boosters and politicians). …
And while we’re on the topic: As you might expect, the Big Ten’s bootlicker — aka the Pac-12 — has decided it too wants to come back and play this fall. Is it just me or does the Pac-12 remind you of the annoying kid brother who tries to imitate everything big brother does? … Tweet of the Week from college football insider Brett McMurphy: “Ohio State will become the only team in AP Poll history to go from No. 2 to unranked to No. 2 in three consecutive polls.” …
Mikey likes:
UCF over Georgia Tech by 14, Notre Dame over USF by 30, Miami over Louisville by 3, Bucs over Panthers by 7, Bills over Dolphins by 10, Titans over Jaguars by 9, Big Ten over
IHOP by no pancakes but 3 waffles. … “Get woke, go broke” is the common refrain from those who believe players kneeling for the national anthem and preaching social justice is the reason NFL ratings were down significantly in Week 1 games. That may be an underlying factor, but the biggest reason is because network TV ratings overall are down nearly 20% from a year ago. … Sheesh, the Jacksonville Jaguars can’t even tank right. What’s it going to be Jags — Minshew Mania or Tank for Trevor? …
Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians actually had the audacity to publicly call out Tom Brady after Brady struggled in his Bucs debut against the Saints. This is the difference between NFL coaches and NBA coaches. In the NBA, if a coach were to call out his star player after a loss, the player would simply look at the coach and say, “You’re fired!” … Speaking of the NBA, can you imagine if it’s the Heat vs. the Nuggets in the NBA Finals? The TV ratings would be worse than the PBS National Geographic Special, “In Search of Insects on the Mojave Desert.” … Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s controversial tweet about Hong Kong several months ago might be the best thing that ever happened to his employment status. You know the Rockets probably want to fire him, but they can’t because it would start the “the NBA is kowtowing to China” narrative all over again. …
Last word
I remember back in the day when I had a full head of hair and I used to love to style it with massive amounts of gel, but, sadly, those days are gone. Sigh. If you’re mousseless, you’re useless.