By George, former UCF, Georgia Tech coach looking forward to ‘O’Leary Bowl’ | Commentary

Running off at the typewriter. …

With UCF playing Georgia Tech in what some of us are calling “The O’Leary Bowl” — aka Gasparilla Bowl — I phoned the former coach of both schools, George O’Leary, on Friday to ask him what an “O’Leary Bowl Trophy” might actually look like.

“I think it should have a blocking sled and a tackling dummy on the top of it,” the old-school O’Leary said. “Those are the two fundamentals I focused on the most when I was coaching.”

When I suggested perhaps the trophy should have a depiction of him forcing his players to go to class so they could get their degrees, O’Leary laughed and said, “I like that idea! I actually did spend a lot of time checking in on study hall just to make sure our players were there taking care of their academics. Less than 1 percent of your players are going to make the NFL, which is why I always believed that they needed to get their college degree to get ahead in life.”

O’Leary, who is in the sports Hall of Fame at UCF and Georgia Tech, was instrumental in building a solid foundation and winning teams at both programs. He says he will sit on the UCF side of the stadium in the first half of the Gasparilla Bowl and on the Georgia Tech side for the second half.

Georgia Tech coach Brent Key played for O’Leary with the Yellow Jackets and served as an assistant coach under him for six years at UCF. In fact, Key was the head coach-in-waiting at UCF and likely would have succeeded his mentor if the team hadn’t fallen apart in 2015 when the young, injury-marred Knights finished 0-12 in O’Leary’s final season. However, O’Leary did leave a nucleus of good players who would help his successor, Scott Frost, go undefeated two years later.

“I thought Brent would be a good head coach,” O’Leary said. “Unfortunately, we got stuck with a lot of injuries and young players in that final season. I think it showed when Scott took over. There were some good players there, but they were young kids and weren’t ready to step in and play in my last year. Unlike some other coaches, I think we left the cupboard full and not bare.”

When I asked O’Leary if he will secretly be rooting for UCF (6-6) or Georgia Tech (6-6) on Friday, he wouldn’t take sides. In fact, in his typically blunt style, he said he wasn’t thrilled about two 6-6 teams being in a bowl game.

“Honestly, I don’t even think 6-6 teams should be allowed to go to bowl games,” he said. “It used to be that we played 11 games and you needed to win at least six (and have a winning record) to go to a bowl. When they increased the schedule to 12 games, they should have required bowl teams to have seven wins, but they kept it at six. I think you should have to have a winning record to get to a bowl game, but that’s just my opinion.” …

Short stuff: A quick reminder since everybody seems to have already forgotten: Michigan cheated to get into the College Football Playoff. … Did you see where the Lakers actually hung up a banner for winning the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament? Go ahead and laugh, but a championship is a championship. As Steve Spurrier used to always say when quoting legendary golfer Byron Nelson: “You can’t take money to the grave with you, but you can take championships.” Spurrier, by the way, is so enamored with championships that he has the unofficial Alliance of American Football Championship Trophy displayed prominently in his restaurant in Gainesville. Our radio show awarded his first-place Orlando Apollos the trophy after the AAF went belly-up midway through its inaugural season. … Speaking of our radio show, many thanks to Buddy Claus and wife Susie Claus for helping us raise close to $20,000 for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida. Buddy Claus is actually Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who dressed up as Santa earlier this week much to the delight of the kids at BGCCF — a safe haven for thousands of disadvantaged youth in our community. Thanks to everybody who donated to a great cause. …

By the way, Mayor Dyer says the plan is to get Camping World Stadium renovated before the Jacksonville Jaguars start the massive renovation of their stadium in 2026-27 so that Orlando will then be a prime candidate to possibly host the Florida-Georgia game and Jaguars games during that two-year stretch. How cool would it be to have one of college football’s signature events and NFL games in the City Beautiful? … Will the last college football star to opt out of his team’s bowl game please turn out the lights? … I never thought I’d be asking this question during the season, but who would you rather have quarterbacking your NFL team right now — Trevor Lawrence or Baker Mayfield? … Ohio State starting quarterback Kyle McCord leaves the Buckeyes to transfer to, um, Syracuse? Isn’t that sort of like Travis Kelce dumping Taylor Swift to start dating Bette Midler? …

Charlotte Hornets star Miles Bridges was denied entrance into Canada for a game vs. the Toronto Raptors earlier this week due to a domestic violence case in which he pleaded no contest to assaulting the mother of his two children (in front of the kids). So Canada won’t allow him into their country, but the NBA allows him on a roster? What else do you need to know about the ethics of sports leagues in our country? … Bad Dad Christmas Joke of the Week: What do reindeer use to decorate their antlers? Hornaments! … Sadly, HBO’s “Real Sports” aired its final episode earlier this week after 29 years. Just another example of investigative journalism disappearing because of corporate budget cuts. What I loved about the Bryant Gumbel-hosted show is that it was independent and unafraid to ruffle feathers in a world where sports news comes from outlets either owned by teams and leagues or networks who are in bed with leagues via billion-dollar rights fees. As Gumbel said about “Real Sports” to the Associated Press: “The show tried to do some things in sports journalism that no one else was doing. I think it was one of the few avenues that could honestly explore issues without having to worry about ratings or sponsorships or relationships.” …

Last word: “Dick Nunis was a standup guy in a sit-down society.” — George O’Leary on the recent passing of Nunis, the former UCF donor and board of trustees chairman.