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- The 1997 UCF Golden Knights football season was the nineteenth overall season for the team, and second season as an NCAA Division I-A Independent. It would be the thirteenth and final season for head coach Gene McDowell. McDowell's 1997 team finished with a 5–6 overall record, matching the record from the previous season. McDowell would resign at season's end in the wake of a cell phone fraud scandal. His tenure as head coach came to a close after compiling an 86–61 record. To-date, McDowell still has the most wins as head coach in program history. UCF started to gain notoriety in 1997, building their program, and playing a higher-profile schedule, including several SEC teams. The Golden Knights lost in overtime to Ole Miss, then narrowly lost to South Carolina. In week three, UCF gained national attention by leading #6 Nebraska 17–14 at halftime. UCF, however, could not hold off the powerful Cornhuskers in the second half, and fell by a final score of 38–24. Lauded by media as the "best 0–3 team in the nation," the Golden Knights won five of their last eight games, including a perfect 4–0 record at home. The team set a then-record average home attendance of 29,585 at the Citrus Bowl, including a then single-game record crowd of 41,827 on September 20. With a 5–6 final record, they were not bowl eligible, but they did attract some attention from scouts for the Carquest Bowl, who saw them as a potential at-large team. At the conclusion of the season, quarterback Daunte Culpepper set fifteen school records, and was named a finalist for the Davey O'Brien Award. He was also named a semi-finalist for the Football News Offensive Player of the Year. The 1997 season was a break-out year for the junior quarterback, and towards the end of the season, speculation began to swirl if Culpepper would forgo his senior year and enter the 1998 NFL draft. Ultimately, Culpepper elected to return to UCF for one final season. Hearing impaired tailback Dwight Collins received the Disney's Wide World of Sports Spirit Award, and running backs coach Alan Gooch who worked with him, was named the AFCA Assistant Coach of the Year. After only two seasons in Division I-A, UCF was already beginning to earn a reputation as a "scary" team on the road. Their near-misses against high-profile teams was in contrast to their predicted status as a mid-major, non-conference school. It started prompting some reluctance among larger schools of scheduling the Knights in future seasons. (en)
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