UCF players focused on main goal

Among the football team, word of UCF's first national ranking began to spread shortly after noon when the USA Today Coaches Top 25 was released and the Knights came in at No. 23.

An hour later, UCF found out they also were represented in the AP Top 25 with a No. 25 ranking.

Senior defensive end Bruce Miller and many of his teammates were eating lunch across the street at Publix when they got the news.

"My parents called me," Miller said. "They had seen it on the internet, so they called and let me know. I was excited. I had a feeling we had a good opportunity to break into the top 25 and I was definitely excited to hear that news.

"I was with a lot (of my teammates) at lunch and we all got the news together. There was a lot of high-fiving. We were excited."

Senior offensive tackle Jah Reid learned of the ranking via a text message from his high school coach.

"He was telling me, 'Congratulations,' and that meant a lot to me," Reid said. "Then my roommate looked it up, so that was very cool. We're very happy to be in the top 25. It means a lot to us.

"We knew at the beginning of the season that we were a good team and one of the top teams in the nation, so we're glad it's showing now and everybody can see that."

Senior defensive end David Williams also found out via text.

"We're ecstatic, but one of the things we've always talked about in the locker room is that we've felt we were a top 25 team all along," Williams said. "Making it into the polls doesn't change that. We know we've got to continue to win football games and prepare hard for everybody because we've got a lot of good teams left to play."

The players are proud of achieving the program's first ever national ranking, but they know in the grand scheme of things it pales in importance to their main objective.

"It's always about where you finish and not where you start," Williams said. "We've got to keep working for every game. We don't know how far we'll go, but our goal really is to win the conference championship and that's what we're here to do."