George O'Leary
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| George O'Leary | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Title | Head Coach | |
| College | UCF | |
| Sport | Football | |
| Team record | 22–27 | |
| Born | August 17, 1946 | |
| Place of birth |  New York City |
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| Career highlights | ||
| Overall | 74–60 | |
| Coaching stats | ||
| College Football DataWarehouse | ||
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | ||
| 1994-2001 2002-2004 2004-present |
Georgia Tech Minnesota Vikings (DC) UCF |
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George O'Leary (born August 17, 1946 in New York City, New York) is the head football coach for the University of Central Florida. Before that, he served as the head coach at Georgia Tech and as an assistant coach for the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL. He was hired as head coach at the University of Notre Dame but did not coach a game for the school.
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[edit] Georgia Tech
- See also: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football
George O'Leary was the head coach at Georgia Tech from 1994 to 2001. O'Leary took over the program as interim head coach with three games remaining in the 1994 season coach after then head coach Bill Lewis was fired, due to the team's 1-7 record just three years after winning the 1990 National Championship. He was later named the head coach prior to the 1995 season. After two off years, O'Leary rebuilt the program into a consistent winner, leading the team to a victory in the 1997 Carquest Bowl in Miami, Florida. O'Leary's 1998 team went 10-2, defeating its arch rival the University of Georgia for the first time in 7 years, as well as the University of Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl. For the remainder of his tenure at Georgia Tech, the team went to a bowl game every season.
O'Leary won the Bobby Dodd National Coach of the year in 2000 and the ACC Coach of the Year Award in 1998 and 2000. During his seven-year stint at Georgia Tech, O'Leary guided the Yellow Jackets to a 52-33 (.612) record, including five bowl appearances. From 1995-2001, Georgia Tech recorded five winning seasons in six years, including the 1998 ACC Co-Championship and an appearance in the Toyota Gator Bowl on New Year's Day. O'Leary's Georgia Tech teams won at least seven games four times during his tenure, including a 10-win season in 1998 and a nine-win campaign in 2000.
During an NCAA investigation, it was revealed that the Georgia Tech football program used ineligible players while O'Leary was head coach.[1] These infractions were due to the deficiencies in the school's administration and were not attributed to O'Leary or his staff. The initial requirement that Georgia Tech vacate the performances of the football team for games in which these ineligible players participated was overturned on appeal.[2] Further, Georgia Tech was placed on probation and lost scholarships because of the violations.
| Preceded by Bill Lewis |
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Football Head Coaches 1994-2001 |
Succeeded by Chan Gailey |
[edit] Notre Dame controversy
In 2001, O'Leary left Georgia Tech to take over as the head coach for the University of Notre Dame. Five days later, O'Leary resigned after he was discovered to have lied on his resume. On the resume, O'Leary claimed that he had earned a master's degree from New York University when in fact he only attended the school but never graduated. He also claimed that he had earned three letters in football at the University of New Hampshire, when the school claimed he had not even played in one game.
Notre Dame initially supported O'Leary when the discrepancies concerning his athletic career at New Hampshire came to light, as O'Leary assured the school that there was nothing else they needed to know. When further background checks found that O'Leary had falsified his academic credentials as well, the school asked for his resignation. "Due to a selfish and thoughtless act many years ago, I have personally embarrassed Notre Dame, its alumni and fans," O'Leary said in a statement that was released that day.[3]
O'Leary blamed the inaccuracies on 'resume padding' that had followed him through his career: "In seeking employment I prepared a resume that contained inaccuracies regarding my completion of course work for a master's degree and also my level of participation in football at my alma mater. These misstatements were never stricken from my resume or biographical sketch in later years."
[edit] Minnesota Vikings
In 2002, O'Leary was hired as the defensive coordinator and defensive line coach by Mike Tice for the Minnesota Vikings and served for two seasons. He was credited with improving the 2002 Vikings defense to 10th in the NFL, after it was ranked 30th in 2001.
[edit] University of Central Florida
- See also: UCF Knights football
O'Leary left the Vikings in 2004 to become the head coach at the University of Central Florida. In his first season, the Knights posted their worst season in school history with an 0-11 record.
The team rebounded in 2005 after joining Conference USA. The team finished the season with an 8-3 record (7-1 in C-USA. UCF defeated Rice to clinch the C-USA East Division and earned the right to host the first-ever C-USA Championship Game, a loss to Tulsa that was played in front of over 51,000 people. The team would then go on to play in the Hawaii Bowl, barely losing to Nevada after UCF kicker Matt Prater missed an extra point in overtime. The Knights were just the sixth team in NCAA history to go to a bowl a year after going winless. O'Leary was named Conference USA Coach of the Year in addition to being named National Coach of the Year by CBSSportsLine.com and SportsIllustrated.com. Facing an 11-game schedule with just four home games, O'Leary's UCF squad became just the fourth team in NCAA history to earn a bowl berth while playing seven road games in an 11-game schedule.
During O'Leary's leadership, UCF has made more of an effort to improve the athletic facilities on campus. On September 15, 2007, it opened its 45,000 seat on-campus football facility, Bright House Networks Stadium with a loss to the Texas Longhorns on ESPN. O'Leary has also been instrumental in getting state-of-the-art practice fields and an indoor football practice facility, the only one of its kind in Florida. UCF opened the 2007 season with a 25-23 victory against ACC team North Carolina State. This was the first victory over a BCS conference team in the O'Leary era. UCF successfully finished the season leading the C-USA East Division, and again earning the right to host the C-USA Championship in its first season at Bright House Networks Stadium. In a rematch of the 2005 Conference Championship game, the Knights would again face the University of Tulsa in the title game. This time, however, O'Leary would lead the Knights to their first ever Conference Championship, a feat that would land the Knights a bid to the 2007 Liberty Bowl in Memphis, TN. This was the second bowl berth in school history (the first coming in 2005 also under O'Leary) and the second one in three years.
[edit] Classroom Success
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Despite the lack of consistent on-field success thus far and an absence of significant wins against high-profile opponents on the field, O'Leary has reshaped the UCF football program in regards to improved academic results in the classroom and overall team discipline on and off the football field. Since O'Leary's arrival, UCF has posted its top two fall semester team grade point averages in the classroom. The Knights set a new school Division I-A history record with a 2.78 team GPA in 2004, only to break that mark with a 2.808 team GPA in the fall of 2005. In 2005, UCF placed 39 student-athletes on the Conference USA Commissioner's Honor Roll, the most of any football squad in the conference. O'Leary's first recruiting class showed 82 percent of the class receiving academic honor roll accolades. The impressive honor roll number was not limited to the newcomers as 40 percent of the entire team earned a 3.00 GPA or higher during the fall 2004 semester.
The Knights academic success continued during the Fall 2007 semester, when the Knights had an in-season team GPA of 2.753. This brought the cumulative GPA of the Knights' roster to 2.838. Furthermore, 44 members of the roster posted a GPA of 3.0 or higher.[4]
[edit] Head coaching record
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl Game | Bowl Opponent | Outcome | Rank# |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia Tech (ACC) (1994 — 2001) | ||||||||
| 1994 | Georgia Tech | 0-3 | 0-6 | 10 | ||||
| 1995 | Georgia Tech | 6-5 | 5-3 | 4 | ||||
| 1996 | Georgia Tech | 5-6 | 4-4 | 5 | ||||
| 1997 | Georgia Tech | 7-5 | 5-3 | 4 | Carquest Bowl | West Virginia | W 35-30 | |
| 1998 | Georgia Tech | 10-2 | 7-1 | 1 - T | Gator Bowl | Notre Dame | W 35-28 | 11 |
| 1999 | Georgia Tech | 8-4 | 5-3 | 2 | Gator Bowl | Miami-FL | L 13-28 | 21 |
| 2000 | Georgia Tech | 9-3 | 6-2 | 2 - T | Peach Bowl | LSU | L 14-28 | 19 |
| 2001 | Georgia Tech | 7-5 | 4-4 | 4 | Seattle Bowl | Stanford | W 24-14 | |
| At Georgia Tech: | 52-33 | 36-22 | ||||||
| UCF Knights (MAC: 2004, C-USA: 2005-present) (2004 — present) | ||||||||
| 2004 | UCF | 0-11 | 0-8 | 7 - MAC East | ||||
| 2005 | UCF | 8-5 | 7-2 | 1 - C-USA East | Hawaii Bowl | Nevada | L 49-48 OT | |
| 2006 | UCF | 4-8 | 3-5 | 4 - C-USA East | ||||
| 2007 | UCF | 10-3 | 8-1 | 1 - C-USA East | Liberty Bowl | Mississippi State | L,10-3 | |
| At UCF: | 22-27 | 18-17 | ||||||
| Career: | 74-60 | |||||||
| National Championship Conference Title | ||||||||
| †Indicates BCS bowl game. #Rankings from final Coaches Poll of the season. | ||||||||
[edit] References
- ^ "Georgia Tech Penalized for Allowing Academically Ineligible Student-Athletes to Compete, Lack of Institutional Control", NCAA, 2005-11-17. Retrieved on 2007-09-16.
- ^ "NCAA Overturns Part of Penalty for Georgia Tech", The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2006-05-18. Retrieved on 2007-09-27.
- ^ O'Leary out at Notre Dame after one week
- ^ http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college/knights/orl-ucfbeat2207dec22,0,3881801.story "Knights make the grade" by Kyle Hightower, 12/22/2007
[edit] External links
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