It was just a good-natured dig during a radio interview a few days ago.
And somehow it turned into a social-media firestorm for former UCF quarterback McKenzie Milton.
People just can’t take a joke anymore.
Milton was on my radio show several days ago talking about the new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) collective started by his company, Dreamfield, as a way to connect UCF fans with UCF athletes and thus provide NIL opportunities for those athletes.
During the course of our conversation about the NIL project — Mission Control UCF — Milton sang the praises of living and playing in Orlando and pointed out how NIL compensation will obviously help UCF’s recruiting.
“When you have great fan experiences, great experiences on campus, and it’s lucrative, that’s the best recruiting pitch possible,” Milton said. “Would you rather be in Orlando, Florida, or somewhere in the Midwest? It’s kind of a no-brainer.”
When the word “Midwest” came up out of Milton’s mouth, the first thought that popped into my head was, “Hmmm, is he poking fun at his former coach, Scott Frost, for his now-questionable decision to leave UCF for Nebraska?”
So I responded to Milton tongue-in-cheek, “Go ahead and say Lincoln, Nebraska. I dare you.”
To which Milton replied tongue-in-cheek, “What about Norman, Oklahoma?”
At that moment, everybody understood Milton was taking a joking jab at his good friend, Dillon Gabriel — the star quarterback who left UCF back in November, entered the transfer portal and ended up at Oklahoma. And, so, we all had a good laugh on the radio and moved on.
Except Milton’s quote took on a life of its own on Twitter and the backlash from Oklahoma and Nebraska fans was immediate. From the reaction of those in the Sooner State, you’d have thought Milton had just said Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! was the worst Broadway musical of all time and he’d rewritten the lyrics to say:
“Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain,
Lincoln Riley’s bolted; it left us jolted,
And the SEC’s gonna make us howl with pain!!!”
I get that Milton’s quote was tweet-worthy and a fun topic of discussion, but what I don’t get is people actually getting mad and indignant about it. Hell, there were Nebraska and Oklahoma fans who were even criticizing me because I solicited Milton’s radio response.
Milton was simply having a little fun with his good friend, Gabriel, just like he would have had the two been sitting right next to each other back home in Hawaii. This “controversy” is the zillionth example of how social media amplifies and intensifies anything and everything in today’s society.
“I’m not bent out of shape about it,” Milton says now. “I called D.G. and he’s not bent out of shape about it either. That’s just Twitter.”
Gabriel didn’t seem offended at all during an interview with The Athletic and pointed out that Milton is no different from any other college football fan or player who takes great pride in his school.
“McKenzie’s a great dude,” Gabriel said. “He’s someone that is family and forever will be. I’ve got a lot of respect for him. He’s just passionate about where he’s from and he loves it. That’s what I love about college football. People are fanatics; people love where they’re from. That’s why it’ll never be like any other sport. College football — college sports in general — is what is so fun because people live in that town, it’s their alma mater, they want to go back and root for it.
“I love that about him [Milton]. He’s a competitive guy. If he’s got to use me, it’s all good. We got on the phone and we talked about it. He’s like, ‘Dude, sorry, man. It went left when I was trying to go right.’ … We talked literally right after [the comments] came out. He called me twice and we got on the phone.”
In the bigger picture, however, the idea behind Milton’s original dig is actually true. While nobody denies that Nebraska and Oklahoma are more tradition-rich programs than up-and-coming UCF, does anybody doubt that Orlando is generally considered a more appealing place to live than Norman or Lincoln?
The City Beautiful is, after all, the third-fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation and the No. 1 fastest-growing city for entrepreneurs (new businesses). For comparison’s sake, the city of Norman added about 18,000 people from 2010 to 2020; Lincoln added about 35,000; and Orlando added about 400,000.
As Milton tweeted when he was accused by some Sooners and Huskers of throwing shade at their programs following his original radio remark: “Not shade y’all, it’s fact. There’s a reason Orlando is the fastest growing city in comparison to these other places. I’m sorry, but the only recruiting pitch that these blue bloods have is that they are just that. No one is jumping out of their seat to move to Lincoln or Norman.”
Says Milton now: “I wasn’t taking any shots at any programs or coaches or players. I was just comparing city to city.”
And, really, there is no comparison despite what those social- media critics from Norman and Lincoln might say.
As that great college football analyst William Shakespeare would say: “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”
