Chris Hill saw first-hand how a BCS berth can enhance a university.
With an 11-0 record and a Mountain West Conference title, his Utah Utes became the first non-automatic qualifying program to crash the exclusive club in the 2004 season.
Some predictable outcomes followed. There was increased visibility for the athletic department, and local enthusiasm for then-coach Urban Meyer's program grew at a frenetic pace.
There was a sense that the undefeated run, which ended with a 35-7 rout of Big East Conference champion Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl, was the start of something special.
So Hill, Utah's athletic director since 1987, relates to what UCF will experience soon. With Louisville's victory over Cincinnati on Thursday, the Knights clinched the American Athletic Conference's BCS berth, meaning a program that began as an independent in 1979 will play high-profile January football for the first time in its history.
The greatest outcome? The event can serve as a springboard to benefits enjoyed campus-wide in many future years.
"You're not all of the sudden a whole different university," said Hill, who also saw Utah play in the 2009 Sugar Bowl. "But the big thing was it really engaged our community and increased the interest in our program and set us on a path where people thought of us in that national discussion.
"I think how it raises your whole athletic department. Football is so visible that people look at your athletic department a little more as a national program when you have that kind of success."
Like Utah back then, there's a chance UCF football will never be the same after Thursday night.
The Knights (10-1, 7-0 AAC) close the regular season Saturday at SMU, but because they beat Louisville by a field goal on Oct. 18 -- part of a wild 6-1 record in games decided by seven points or less -- they own the tiebreaker over the Cardinals and will likely test their cardiac-kid profile against a program with more resources and visibility.
Still, UCF has already won, no matter the result at the Orange Bowl or Sugar Bowl or wherever the first days of 2014 are spent.
This is a program that saw an increased attention when it lured George O'Leary, a two-time Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year, to Orlando before the 2004 season.
