ACC reputation is falling faster than title-game ticket prices
Big East loses sixth member, just as
UCF is set to join the league,
It’s no wonder you can get a pair of tickets to the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game for the price of a bottle of shampoo, a disposable razor and a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
No, really, tickets for Saturday’s ACCtitle game between Florida State and Georgia Tech are selling online for as low as $3, which is no surprise considering what a punch line the ACChas become as a football league. And the joke became even more laughable Wednesday when the ACCand its shortsighted leadership added Louisville to its stable of mules, donkeys and Shetland ponies.
This comes on the heels of ACCofficials standing idly by and allowing Miami to selfimpose a postseason ban just a couple of weeks before the Hurricanes would have been playing Florida State in Saturday’s conference-championship game. That allowed a pitiful 6-6 Georgia Tech team, coming off a 42-10 dismantling at the hands of Georgia last week, to
campus.
But in that pregame meeting, Messeguer, who has missed only a few games in the Knights’ 33-year football history and serves as a special assistant to UCF coach George O’Leary, made it clear why the game was so important.
He told the team just how much a win would mean to the program, what it represented in taking UCF to the next level.
“The game seemed to be on the forefront of everybody’s mind back then,” Israel said.
As UCF prepares this week for a chance at its final Conference USA title, there are some parallels and key differences between the 2007 and 2012 teams.
Like the 2007 Knights, the 2012 team will face Tulsa this year in the championship game. And just like 2007, the championship game will be a rematch of a regular-season game.
But while UCF hosted the title game five years ago, the Knights will travel to Oklahoma this week. The game was the main attraction in 2007, but the conference championship has been pushed to stage left with conference-re- alignment news this year.
What hasn’t changed, according to players, is the football approach to the game.
Like in years past, inpractice schedules are the same and the day-to-day itinerary hasn’t been altered much from any normal week. Former linebacker Josh Linam and current Knights said it mirrors the way the week ran leading up to the 2010 championship.
“It remains the same, but everybody knows what we’re playing for,” junior lineman Jordan McCray said this week. “We can’t slack up, we can’t have an off-week, off-day, off-play.”
The noticeable differences come in areas away from football, former and current players said.
The weekly Tuesday press conference was packed with media members and cameras, more so than during any normal week. That, Israel said, was one of the major adjustments he remembered from 2007. Former running back Kevin Smith and a few other teammates sat down with former ESPN reporter Erin Andrews before the game, he recalled.
“There was a lot more attention,” Israel said.
Players this week said the energy in the locker room feels different. The atmosphere is more fo- cused, defensive lineman Victor Gray said, and there is a feel of excitement about what the weekend holds.
“Everyone is more intense, everything is more detailed,” said wide receiver J.J. Worton, who is experiencing his first title game. “People know what they need to do and we’re getting ready.”
Running back Latavius Murray, who won a championship in 2010, agreed. “Most definitely a different energy,” he said.
Any fiery motivational speeches this week probably won’t come from O’Leary, former players said. Both Israel and Linam said the coach actually backed off any rhetoric during the program’s previous two championship weeks. O’Leary let the game’s import stand on its own merit, Linam said.
O’Leary’s approach is another thing that likely won’t change this week
“This is a week where if you have to say a lot to get them ready to play, you got problems,” O’Leary said on Tuesday. “Why? They have an opportunity to reach the only goal they set for themselves in the conference championship. ... That’s all that really needs to be said if their goal meant something when they made it.”