With Big East timebomb ticking away, is UCF the school?

Don't look now, but it's the middle of June.

It may take a moment to draw any significance from that statement, so here's a hint: Isn't UCF supposed to have been invited to the Big East by now?

It seemed like one of those things bound to happen for a while now. Any minute now — and yet, no invitation has been extended.

So what does it all mean?

Well, the Big East is trying to figure itself out, and to be fair, there's a lot going on there.

There are basketball schools with their interests, football schools with theirs, and then there are some television contract options to be sorted out; the gist of which is, the waiting game continues.

Except, it shouldn't be looked upon solely as a waiting game.

Enough with the "we're not in a real conference" excuses.

Yes, a conference upgrade is the best possible outcome for the Knights. At the end of the day it means more money, more exposure and a chance to play in a BCS bowl, via a slot reserved for the best team in what's always been a pretty weak football conference.

And yes, everybody vaguely familiar with the situation is aware UCF would jump at an all-sports Big East membership, so there's no real suspense about that. But for right now, the Knights are members of Conference USA, and it's not all "doom and gloom," as some would suggest.

UCF just had easily its most successful year across the board. And yes, it did so while in C-USA. What's more is all the programs, despite their achievements, have plenty of room for improvement. That is to say, none of these programs have peaked.

The football team was ranked, won the conference and beat Georgia in the Liberty Bowl. But, the Knights got off to a slow start and dropped games early in the schedule they may not necessarily have lost as the season went on.

If coach George O'Leary and his staff can prepare their team to hit the ground running this fall, there's a good chance the Knights could make some real noise, possibly even "BCS-buster" noise.

At this particular moment, UCF has no control over whether it gets into an automatic-qualifier conference.

It does have control over whether the program builds on last year's successes and can continue to build a national profile. The formula is really simple: recruiting and winning.

Across the board, for all sports, winning is the solution for everything; and recruiting breeds winning.

For the way some people talk about C-USA, you'd think the Knights had won conference titles in every sport, every year, since they got there. You'd think UCF had dominated the conference from day one.

But that's not what's happened, is it?

Men's basketball and baseball haven't even come close.

The football team has two conference titles and is in position this season to assert itself as the dominant team in the league by going back-to-back. And for an athletics department with such lofty aspirations, that's exactly what they should be doing.

If UCF wants respect on a national level, the program will have to become bigger than its conference. Memphis basketball, for a while, was bigger than Conference USA. The conference tournament was essentially the Tigers' warm-up for the NCAA Tournament.

Boise State has been bigger than its conference for years.

And as for baseball, C-USA is actually a very good conference. In what other sport would beating Rice be a big deal? Nevertheless, the Knights should aspire to be the conference's marquee program, which they are far from at this point.

If a Big East invite comes, fine, UCF should absolutely jump at the opportunity. But enough with the waiting mindset.

This past year, longtime Knights fans were rewarded with a glimpse of what the school is capable of. Whether it was an anomaly or the start of something big, only time will tell.

But being in Conference USA is not enough to hold UCF back from bigger things.

Not dominating Conference USA, however, might be.