Central Florida coach George O'Leary, speaking Wednesday on a teleconference with reporters, said that he still doesn't understand why USF isn't interested in continuing an annual series with UCF.

"One side gets it, the other side, I don't know what the problem is," O'Leary said.

O'Leary said the rivalry reminds him of when he was at Georgia Tech and there was an annual rivalry game with Georgia, despite the teams being in separate conferences.

"It was different conferences, but that had nothing to do with playing the game," he said. "With Georgia, it was about locale and distance, being in the same state. It's very similar to what you have here."

Georgia and Georgia Tech are both in BCS conferences, as is USF, while UCF is the defending champion in Conference USA. Asked if he played any annual rivalry games at Georgia Tech with teams who weren't in major conferences, O'Leary said he didn't.

"No, Georgia was the one that was our rivalry game," he said.

O'Leary said he wasn't worried about his players getting too emotional or overexcited knowing Saturday is UCF's last scheduled chance to beat USF. If anything, he said, his players likely aren't aware of that.

"I don't even think they know it's the last time they're playing them," he said. "I haven't said anything to them about that. ... They don't look at it as the last time playing them. It's the game on Saturday, it just happens to be a team 60 miles away."