ESPN’s College GameDay broadcast will be airing from Jacksonville, Florida to soak in the atmosphere for the SEC East Division showdown between Georgia and Florida. With GameDay heading to Florida, a group of UCF fans decided it would be a good opportunity to show up on the scene and show support for the Knights. That trip is now off due to what the UCF fan group claims were violent threats aimed at the group from fans of Georgia and Florida.
“When we started this, the intention was to have fun with fellow Knights on a trip to remember while respectfully showing up to GameDay to promote the UCF brand,” a statement from the group UCF Knights Watch said via Twitter. “A select few of the fans of the teams represented in Jacksonville have openly and credibly threatened to meet us, pepper spray, throw glass beer bottles, steal flags, steal signs and overall physically attack us on sight.”
It goes without saying threatening physical violence against anyone over Twitter is deplorable and paints a negative image of the person sending the Twitter threats. How much harm UCF fans would actually be putting themselves in while visiting Jacksonville is unknown, but odds are pretty good these threats are little more than keyboard warriors trying to bully the UCF fan group. But, in this day and age, one can never play it too safe, which is why this UCF fan group has decided it’s best to stay home rather than make the trip to Jacksonville.
Joint statement on the Jax trip. pic.twitter.com/hXcKsKKh93
— UCF Knights Watch (@UCFKnightsWatch) October 25, 2018
These are just some of the tweets. There were people in our groups finding out where we were going to be while others were planning on doing things on our way back to the buses. We had kids and some older folks in our group. We couldn't risk them getting hit with a glass bottle. pic.twitter.com/J5jqsVM5KJ
— UCF Knights Watch (@UCFKnightsWatch) October 25, 2018
This all comes after UCF Athletics Director Danny White wrote an open letter to address some comments he did not like from last week’s episode of College GameDay. That may have helped fuel the push to organize a trip to attend GameDay, but the weak-minded threats of a few losers behind a keyboard have scrubbed those plans entirely.