UCF AD turns down Gators two-for-one offer, wants neutral site game or a home and home

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UF athletics director Scott Stricklin said Friday he would be open to scheduling a football game, or even a series, with UCF.

“I’d be OK with scheduling them — in the right situation,” Stricklin said.

Stricklin said UCF athletics director Danny White has never reached out about the possibility of playing the Gators.

Stricklin said he would be willing to pick up the phone, too.

“We haven’t had a spot where we thought this made sense at this point,” Stricklin said.

If the schools were to set up a Gators-Knights series, Stricklin said it would have to be similar to the two-for-one structure of UF’s upcoming series with USF, announced last May.

White has said the Knights have to focus on scheduling home-and-home series, with one game played at UF and one at UCF. He suggested it would be unfair to a growing season ticket base to give up an extra home game and it would be financially difficult to give up about $2 million in revenue from a home game in exchange for a Power 5-host payout that generally would be far less than $2 million.

“We do home-and-homes with like FSUs and Power 5 leagues,” Stricklin said. “We haven’t done any home-and-homes with non-Power 5 teams. I don’t think we would start that.

“But I’d love to schedule them [the Knights] in a game.”

White said in a statement released to the Orlando Sentinel Friday after seeing Stricklin’s comments that he looked forward to trying to schedule a game with the Gators.

“I’m encouraged to hear that UF is open to the idea of playing us in football. Since I’ve been here, it had been made clear to me there wasn’t much hope of that,” White’s statement read. “Our scheduling philosophy has been transparent since I arrived at UCF — that we’re open to a home-and-home series with any non-conference Power 6 opponent. Top 10 programs don’t schedule two-for-one series where the balance is not in their favor. Our growing fanbase and our student-athletes deserve better than that.

“However, It sounds as though a single game could be an option and I’d bet there are plenty of neutral-site locations that would love to host a game of that magnitude. Perhaps we could work out a three-game series, with a home-and-home and a neutral site involved. I’m excited to follow up with Scott and his team to see if we can make this happen. It would be great for college football in the Sunshine State!”

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