Houston and UCF Have a Space Feud Brewing

The Houston Cougars are currently 4-6 and will need to win their final two games in order to play on one of those bowls you watch instead of spending time with your in-laws over the holiday break. Those contests will come against Oklahoma State and UCF, who matched up this past Saturday in Orlando in what turned out to be a lopsided affair with the Knights crushing the Cowboys while wearing Space City uniforms.

Houston coach Dana Holgorsen caught a bit of that thumping and shared some of his thoughts during his weekly radio show yesterday (55-minute mark). And may have sparked an all-out arms race between two cities desperate to stake claim to being the spaciest.

"(Oklahoma State) goes in and Central Florida has got those unis," Holgorsen said. "I don't know what the heck they are, but they are some blue unis... Some Space City thing. I thought we were Space City... (The launch pad) is like 45 minutes away (from Orlando). It's not close. They don't say, 'Orlando, we got a problem.'"

Holgorsen hasn't exactly turned Houston into a perennial power but he has continued to be a great character in recent years, always looking like someone who just had two Red Bulls and demanding answers as to why his kid didn't make varsity. He knows how to sell and the rivalry with UCF doesn't get top billing as the most intriguing. What better way to address that by sparking a conversation about which area of the country launches the most stuff up into space?

That season finale is going to be an all-out war now that the stakes have been raised to, uh, astronomical portions. And by the way, he's right. No one ever says Orlando, we have a problem unless it's an NBA podcast and Markelle Fultz is in poor form.