Actually, the Tampa area and TV market is larger than Orlando's. USF has a much larger endowment than UCF, vastly more in research funding each year, better academics, and a documented effort to work for AAU status.
USF traditionaly recruits better than UCF, and with the exception of the last few years has had better attendance. I would not be surprised to see the attendance higher than UCF's for this year.
The team was really bad after Skip Holtz basically destroyed it, and the new coach took a couple years to change things around.
USF has better TV ratings than UCF, and the team is expected to be way better than UCF this year.
UCF had a future NFL QB (Bortles) just at the right time for expansion, and while winning the conference still gave an automatic BCS bid, while USF during that same time was dragged down into the depths by the firing of Jim Leavitt for slapping a player and then trying to cover it up, and then by some bad coach hiring choices.
I think most people who figure UCF to be the better choice would have a different opinion two years from now (or even next year)
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