I’m hiding my diploma and changing my name. OK, I’ll ask George O’Leary to change his name instead – maybe change careers.

Actually, I do think George is a good coach. He just needs to recruit better locally.

The big difference between the two progams was speed, pure and simple. A perfect example is the play when USF’s George Selvie breaking through the line and knocking the ball out of Kyle Israel’s hand before Israel could hand the ball off.

USF has faster players. USF also has more local players. Selvie is a Florida High School product, one of 99 on the Bulls. Israel is a local, but 32 players on UCF are out-of-state.

In a previous life, I covered high school football for the Tampa Tribune, particularly Polk, Highlands, and Hardee counties.  I saw the talent that comes out of South Central Florida, and it’s impressive. The towns of Frostproof, Pahokee, and Immokalee have produced more pro football players than New York City. They are not particularly bigger in South Central Florida than other places, but they are much faster.

Former Miami assistant coach Art Kehoe  gleaned this area of recruits who would help the Hurricanes win five national championships. Florida State cleaned out the area in recruiting back in 1988. Four years later, Bobby Bowden won his first national championship. After years of  neglect, Florida started rebuilding ties with high school coaches in the area when Steve Spurrier arrived, and Urban Meyer continues that trend.

Jim Leavitt has been the only football coach at USF. He has found most of his players in a 100-mile radius of Tampa and forged relationships with most of the local high school coaches.

In fairness to O’Leary, the UCF coach has had to play catch-up to Leavitt, partially because his predecessor, Mike Tomzak, treated local coaches horribly. O’Leary still has great relationships with high schools in the Atlanta area from his days at Georgia Tech, but he has yet to build the relationships Leavitt has even among the Orlando area schools.

If O’Leary is smart, he will stop on the way back to Orlando and visit Lakeland coach Bill Castle and Lake Gibson coach Keith DeMyer. Later on, he might take a trip down U.S. 27 and check out the small towns around Lake Okeechobee. Because of the size and length of his contract, it’s unlikely O’Leary is on the hot seat. But after three straight losses to USF,  it became a lot warmer.