Five Questions With Underdog Dynasty about Jacoby Glenn

http://www.windycitygridiron.com/2015/5/19/8625629/chicago-bears-ucf-jacoby-glenn-nfl-draft

Thanks to our being part of the SB Nation network, we have access to literally hundreds of other experts that cover both the NFL and college football.

This series of Five Questions With... will focus on not only the 2015 draft class for the Chicago Bears, but some of the undrafted free agents as well. This series of articles has become one of my favorites to do here at Windy City Gridiron, as I feel it gives us an added insight to the new players on the Bears.

This time out we're talking with Chas Short and Mitchell Alexander of Underdog Dynasty, the SB Nation site that covers some of the smaller FBS conferences, about undrafted free agent Jacoby Glenn from UCF.

Windy City Gridiron - After getting a mid-round grade by most internet scouts and draftniks, why do you think Glenn went undrafted?

Chas Short - I'll start by acknowledging that my answer is necessarily going to be speculative.

There's a lot to like about his body of work, but it's short. Glenn was a redshirt sophomore who started as soon as he got to see the field. And he was productive right away. As a redshirt freshman, he had an impressive number of passes defended. And a pair of interceptions, sacks, and forced fumbles. Then he really stepped up this past year as a redshirt sophomore - Glenn was the co-defensive player of the year for the AAC. And he was UCF's first AP All-American since Kevin Smith in 2007. The Knights had a top five defense last year and Glenn played a large role in that success.

So I've got to think a factor here was that he would have benefited with more time in school and refining his play. Some folks have criticized his instincts and some technique issues. Adding to that, his combine results didn't blow anyone away. Feels like these concerns were probably at play, especially since I don't foresee injury or character concerns here.

Mitchell Alexander - Again, to speculate, I'd have to say the reason why Glenn dropped might have had to do with his limited experience combined with a pretty solid draft class of CB's. Up against a lot of players with impressive resumes made it hard for Glenn to stand out.

WCG - Glenn played the Field Corner for UCF, can you explain what that means and did he play anywhere else in the defensive backfield during his 2 year career?

Chas Short - The field corner plays the wider side of the field (contrast to the boundary corner, who is playing on the short side of the field). Part of the notion is that while a field corner typically has to deal with a lot of space, he is not often left alone. This is where a team normally plays its better CB.

Glenn played all of 2014 at corner. And I don't recall him playing elsewhere in the backfield in 2013. Incidentally, he played safety his senior year of high school.

WCG - I've seen Glenn described as a ballhawk, but with less than ideal speed, which often times warrants a switch to safety. Is Glenn a physical and tough enough player to make such a move?

Chas Short - His reputation as a ballhawk is well-deserved. Glenn closed the regular season ranked third in the country in interceptions (with 7). And lots of passes defended.

It's funny - I was never much concerned with his speed at the college level. And I think your question forces me to confront and acknowledge that I'd want more out of my NFL corner.

As to a switch to safety, I wouldn't have concerns about his mental toughness. Glenn is intense on the field. But he is a slim guy, so the physical aspects might concern me.

WCG - Any injury or character flags Bears' fans should be concerned with?

Chas Short - Nope. He only missed one game in his college career. He didn't play at Temple in 2013 due to injury. And he started the other 25 games. I have no reason to be concerned about character either.

That was easy, wasn't it?

WCG - What are the odds Glenn can stick on an NFL roster?

Chas Short - I'd be happier answering this question if Glenn had remained at UCF for another year or two and continued to develop. But I've been impressed with his play and see the potential for good things in the future for him. To me, he feels like a player who will bounce around a bit before eventually catching on somewhere.

While Knights fans wish he had stuck around (as he initially announced he would do), we appreciate his excellent contributions to the team and wish him the best.

Mitchell Alexander - I definitely think Glenn could make an NFL roster. He plays with great intelligence and skill and with a couple of years in an NFL system he could be a great depth CB or even a starter. I would not be surprised to see him wind up in training camp and moved to a few different teams before he blooms though.

Thanks to Chas Short and Mitchell Alexander for giving us some inside stuff on Jacoby Glenn!

George O'Leary Will Be UCF's Interim Athletic Director

http://www.underdogdynasty.com/2015/6/23/8832203/george-oleary-will-be-ucfs-interim-athletic-director

George O'Leary: your new UCF Interim Athletic Director. His first day on the (additional) job will be July 11. Wow.

I hope I'm not spoiling anything by telling you that we'll shortly be running an analysis discussing the hot seat (or, uh, cold seat) of each AAC head football coach. It's not surprising that O'Leary's seat is not hot, not even a little. My view is that  O'Leary will be coaching football at UCF as long as he wants to, and that there is tremendous mutual loyalty and trust between the UCF administration and GOL.

What a clear demonstration of that loyalty and trust.

In UCF's press release, President John Hitt had this to say about the choice:

"George's leadership and knowledge of athletics -- which includes programs beyond football -- will keep UCF moving forward academically, competitively, and in the community [. . .] His national connections will also help us continue building the Knights' reputation around the country [. . . ] George believes, as do I, that our strong athletics and university staffs will ensure he is successful on and off the field."

O'Leary's on field accomplishments are easy to identify. He has coached the Knights to every major success and benchmark in the history of the football program: getting to their first bowl game, winning their first bowl game, winning the Fiesta Bowl, earning a top ten AP Poll ranking, and winning Conference Championships in both C-USA and the AAC.

There are good things to be said about his off-field achievements as well. O'Leary emphasizes academics, which has translated to an excellent graduation rate among UCF football players. That's part of a broader pattern at UCF, by the way. UCF has the highest Graduation Success Rate for student-athletes of any public NCAA Division I FBS school at 95%.

O'Leary will replace, at least through the end of 2015, AD Todd Stansbury who leaves to take the AD position at Oregon State.

The questions going forward will be interesting. Will GOL end up permanently occupying the position and being UCF's Barry Alvarez?

Does this lend credence to the notion that GOL will be retiring sooner, rather than later? UCF fans will remember the speculation that he would retire in 2014 after the Penn State game in Ireland (which, obviously, did not happen). But if O'Leary's performs well as Interim AD, won't it be easy to see him slotting into that role permanently at the end of 2015?

And wouldn't that nicely make way for heir apparent Brent Key, who was already taking on an expanded role this year as offensive coordinator, and who will no necessarily have to take an even greater role given that O'Leary will now have more on his plate?

And wouldn't that transition feel even more natural now that we are seeing UCF loyalty in action?

O'Leary called his appointment "another great adventure." There's no doubt: this is a really interesting move for UCF and it will be fascinating to see how all this plays out.

Agreement Not Necessary: Diaco Stands by Unilateral "Rivalry"

http://www.underdogdynasty.com/2015/6/9/8749225/agreement-not-necessary-diaco-stands-by-unilateral-rivalry

WHEREAS, a body of men calling themselves the National Congress are now in session in Washington City, in violation of our Imperial edict of the 12th of October last, declaring the said Congress abolished;

WHEREAS, it is necessary for the repose of our Empire that the said decree should be strictly complied with;

NOW, THEREFORE, we do hereby Order and Direct Major-General Scott, the Command-in-Chief of our Armies, immediately upon receipt of this, our Decree, to proceed with a suitable force and clear the Halls of Congress.

- Proclamation of Emperor Norton I, January 1860.

Joshua Abraham Norton, the self-proclaimed Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, is one of the most colorful characters in American history. Here was a guy who lost a fortune investing (badly) in rice, lost a lawsuit litigating his rice contract, and then re-invented himself as a self-styled emperor. He made proclamations. Currency was issued in his name. Norton I had zero authority. None. He was an emperor in his own mind. But sometimes the people of San Francisco humored him. And that was . . . a kind of power. Maybe.

It turns out that UConn's Bob Diaco is the Emperor Norton I of college football.

Last week, he and the UConn football program declared unilaterally that UConn had a rivalry with UCF. This is the "Civil Conflict," and it comes complete with a countdown clock in UConn's locker room. And also a trophy. The trophy lists the result of only one of the two football games UConn and UCF have played.

UCF had no knowledge of, or involvement with, the rivalry game Diaco had declared. George O'Leary said he "didn't know anything about that":

I didn't know anything about a trophy, a time thing or anything else. My experience is you're more likely to have a rivalry against a team closer to where you live. Which I was at [Georgia] Tech, it was Georgia. I think it's UCF-USF here. When you go 10 states away, I think it's hard. North and South thing or whatever, I don't know.

Diaco was undeterred. He stands by a rivalry with UCF and insists that UCF doesn't have to know or agree. And he doubled down on his earlier proclamation:

Why do I have to call their athletic department and say that we've got them targeted as our rival, period? What control would they have? What do I care what they think? If they don't want to be part of the trophy, I don't care about that either.

When you're Bob Diaco, reciprocity just doesn't figure into it:

Whether [UCF] honors it, we will honor it. We don't have control over that, so who cares. They don't get to say whether they are our rival or not. We might not be their rival, but they don't get to say whether they are our rival -- that is for us to decide.

When we discussed the "Civil Conflict" with our colleagues at The UConn Blog, we agreed that even though it would be wrong to label UConn-UCF a rivalry in any real sense, Diaco has certainly succeeded in generating interest about a game that few would have been talking about otherwise, much less talking about in June. There's a program marketing angle here that Diaco is clearly aware of:

For us it's exciting and I think it's fun. If you embrace it, you embrace it. If you don't, you don't. There was nothing before, so if you don't embrace it there would still be nothing. And if you do, even a little bit, it's more energetic and exciting.

Underdog Dynasty and UConn Blog Discuss the "Civil Conflict"

http://www.underdogdynasty.com/2015/6/8/8742117/underdog-dynasty-and-uconn-blog-discuss-the-civil-conflict

Last Monday, UConn declared a rivalry with UCF. @UConnFootball unveiled a trophy and countdown clock in UConn's locker room. UCF's response? "We have no involvement with the trophy or creating a rivalry game with UConn."

UCF and UConn have played twice. Here are the results:

1.         In 2013, the Knights destroyed the Huskies 62-17 en route to a Fiesta Bowl winning campaign.

2.         In 2014, the Huskies upset the Knights 37-29. It was UConn's only win over an FBS team. It was UCF's only AAC loss (to date!) and meant that the Knights shared the 2014 AAC title instead of winning it outright for the second consecutive year.

Only the latter result appears on the trophy.

It's an odd rivalry to claim, even for the nascent AAC. As the inimitable Spencer Hall put it:

2. When choosing a rivalry, be sure to seek out someone with literally no overlap in interests or cultural stakes. This ensures a hearty staring across the field wondering if the opposing fan even breathes the same gas, or considers the same items to be food.

3. Additionally, make sure the two teams are literally as far apart as two teams in conference or division can be. This ensures minimum attendance of games, and thus preserves a real mystery about who, or even what the opponent truly may be.

UConn Blog's Tim Fontenault joined us to discuss the newly-declared "Civil Conflict."

On fan reaction:

Chas:  UConn's twitter announcement, the countdown clock, the unilateral declaration of rivalry. How are UConn fans reacting to all this?

Tim:  I think UConn fans were caught off guard in much the same way UCF was. After the game last year when Diaco was talking about the idea of a trophy, everyone was like, "OK, he's happy they won. There's no way he's serious." No one ever looked at UCF as a rival. Now no one knows what to think. I don't think anyone looks at it as a rivalry now, except Diaco, of course.

Chas:  That was going to be my next question - whether any UConn fans think this is a rivalry. I will tell you on the UCF side, it's much the same. No fan views a rivalry as existing. And there's not been anything from the program suggesting a rivalry exists either.

Tim: I guess what I'm really dying to know is what the actual [UCF fan] reaction was. I feel like it was the same as UConn fans but on a completely different level, like if a girl were to open Facebook and see a relationship status request from a guy she had no interest in.

Chas: Or that she didn't really know that well, even. But you've captured the prevailing view perfectly. I would say there's a minority that describe it as embarrassing, or a symptom of being in an embarrassing conference.

Me, I'm more of an optimist. I think it's absurd. And just really funny actually. And I'm open to embracing and enjoying the absurdity here. Even if I can't call it a "rivalry" in any meaningful sense.

Tim: Me too. I'm all for a good time with it. It's something that will allow our fanbases to interact in a new way through the beauty of social media. It won't be hatred. There will be no conflict. There will be civility.

But do our fans, uh, know each other?

Chas: Part of what's so baffling here is the lack of connection between the fanbases. We're not remotely geographically proximate. I mean, how many UCF fans do you know? Personally?

Tim: The only reason I know UCF fans is because my best friend, my old UConn roommate, recently moved to Kissimmee to work at Disney and I spent a week with him down there in May. I don't understand how anyone can consider the two schools rivals. Prior to the American, I remember one UConn-UCF matchup in anything, which was basketball in a November tournament a few years back. I knew UCF as the team Michael Jordan's son played for back then.

Who are the teams' respective "real rivals?"

Tim: In football, I give the rival nod to Temple or USF, and even those are not big-time rivalries for anyone. None of [the "Civil Conflict"] makes sense.

Chas: Which of those gets the nod as the bigger football rival for you?

Tim: Probably USF. They were in the Big East with us longer and UConn's had a couple of famous wins against them (Dave Teggart's field goal when the fans stormed the field and the win to put UConn in the Fiesta Bowl). But again, even calling them a rival is iffy.

Chas: Of course, they're our rival as well. It's a funny contrast: the War on I-4 was bitter from the start. It was bitter when UCF was going 0-4. It was bitter when we weren't playing USF. And it is bitter since the rivalry resumed here with UCF going 2-0 since the transition to the AAC. But with UConn . . . definitely not seeing the rancor between fan bases.

Tim: [UCF/USF] makes sense as a natural rivalry. I learned quickly during my trip that most on-ramps to highways had two signs: East to Orlando; West to Tampa. It makes so much sense! UConn and any Connecticut team would if any other school had big-time athletics. There's a reason Boston College was considered a major rival in the old days.

Diaco as mad marketing . . . genius?

Tim: With Diaco, you nod your head to let him know you're listening, but nine times out of 10 you're looking for a thesaurus or trying to decipher a weird phrase. I was in the press conference after UCF. We all laughed and went along with it, thinking there was only a 5 percent chance he would really do this. "Oh, a bowl of oranges or nutmeg?[1] Haha, oh, Bob, you're hilarious!" No one understood it.

Apparently he talked to George O'Leary about it, and based on that, it seems like it was a guy asking a girl on a date and getting the "I'll think about it." In this case, Diaco is me in eighth grade.

Chas: Say this for Diaco though: UConn-UCF may not be a "rivalry" but now it's certainly a . . . "something." Whatever that "something" is, there will without a doubt be more interest in next year's game. Even if no one other than Diaco has the date circled on the calendar.

Tim: Yea, absolutely. That's the thing about Diaco. I haven't always agreed with him, but he is a businessman as much as a coach, and he is doing a heck of a job marketing his team. I want to be at the game now because this is going to be an interesting one. And does it carry over into other sports now, too? We'll at least joke about it. UConn and UCF are playing in men's soccer. "It's the Civil Conflict!" Bob's starting a phenomenon.

And it's not only with crazy moves like this. Diaco is doing a great job marketing his team to the public and to recruits, as well. Players know the last few years have been tough, but Diaco is making them want to be here.

Chas:  A friend of mine who is a UConn fan (I know two!) put it this way, which I think is consistent with your comment about Diaco as marketing the program: "It's a great thing for UConn whether a real rivalry or perceived." Gets people talking.

Regardless of whether a genuine rivalry develops between UConn and UCF, Diaco's declaration of a "Civil Conflict" has certainly succeeded in starting a conversation.

---

[1] Shortly after UConn's 2014 win, Diaco told the media:

"We're excited about this game. I mean it. I'm excited to continue this game. With all admiration and respect. All admiration and respect for Central Florida and Coach O'Leary. They're spectacular. But we're excited about this North/South battle. You want to call it the Civil Conflict? Maybe I'll win my money and make a trophy. I'll buy it myself. Put a big giant Husky and a big giant Knight on it. Make a stand. Put it in our hallway. The Civil Conflict. The loser, maybe they've got to put nutmeg on the stand when it's not there and we'll put a sack of oranges."

UCF WR Taylor Oldham Still Day to Day

http://www.underdogdynasty.com/2015/5/22/8646207/ucf-wr-taylor-oldham-still-day-to-day

orlandosentinel.com

 

Redshirt Junior WR Taylor Oldham looks poised to miss summer workouts while recovering from the apparent ankle injury he suffered during the Knights' spring game. It's certainly less than ideal given the youth (Oldham is the only upper classman at WR) and inexperience in the WR corps this year. But ultimately the impact of this missed time shouldn't be overstated. Oldham's impact on the field to date has been minimal and, as Shannon Owens-Greens points out, there will be promising new faces with an opportunity to step up. We wish him a speedy recovery.