Disgraced. That's how George O'Leary's coaching career might have ended.

Hired to coach Notre Dame after resurrecting the football program at Georgia Tech, O'Leary found his Irish dream had come true — until an enterprising reporter started fact-checking his resume. A fudge here, a stretch there, and all of a sudden O'Leary wasn't all he was cracked up to be.

Embarrased, Notre Dame showed O'Leary the door.

For many college football fans, O'Leary became a punchline, an example of the alarming rate of excess in the college game. A nice kid from New York who worked his way from being a high school assistant coach in his hometown to the pinnacle of the college coaching profession.

And then he disappeared. And that should have been the end of the story.

But this is America. It's the land of opportunity. The land of Ellis Island and Mount Rushmore. It's the land of mik and honey. And it's the land of the second chance. America will give anyone a second chance to erase disgrace. It's in our forgiving nature.

And O'Leary is taking advantage of our forgiveness in a profound way.

Now at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, O'Leary has the Golden Knights pointed toward a possible bowl berth, which would be the school's first in history.

After Friday's 34-24 win over Tulane, UCF is now 4-3 overall, 3-1 in Conference USA. The Golden Knights are two wins away from bowl eligibility, and remain in a tie for first place in the East Division.

That would be victory enough considering the Golden Knights had not won a game under O'Leary until about five weeks ago. But now the expectations are getting out of hand.

"I'm not worried about any titles," O'Leary said earlier this month. "I think that's one of the problems is people keep talking about titles. I'm worried about one game. ... I think the players are finally starting to realize that's what they should be worried about."

But wouldn't that be just perfect? Taking the Golden Knights from the nation's worst losing streak to a conference title? We make movies about this kind of stuff.

O'Leary's therapy from the Notre Dame mess was to go back to his roots as an assistant coach. Before he climbed to the head coaching profession, O'Leary had a reputation as a great defensive mind. He cultivated that at Syracuse, where he was a defensive line coach; at Georgia Tech, where he was defensive coordinator; and at San Diego in the NFL, where he coached the defensive line.

O'Leary went back to Georgia Tech in 1994 as a defensive coordinator, but late in the season a coaching change put O'Leary in charge as interim coach.

The Yellow Jackets lost their final three games of the season under O'Leary, and finished the season 1-10, their third straight year without a bowl berth.

That was unacceptable to the folks at Tech, and after a long coaching search they took a chance on O'Leary. The rewards came slowly but surely.

Two more seasons without a bowl berth followed, but the Jackets were at least winning games. Then, starting in 1997, the Jackets made five straight bowl appearances under O'Leary, including an Atlantic Conference co-championship in 1998 and a Gator Bowl berth. By the time he was done, O'Leary was the fourth-winningest coach in Tech history.

Then Notre Dame came calling. It's nothing more than a footnote in the UCF media guide — "Prior to his stint with the (Minnesota) Vikings, O'Leary left Georgia Tech and became the head coach of Notre Dame in December 2001."

Then came scandal and resignation. O'Leary had padded his resume (who among us hasn't), as he claimed to have a master's degree in education and to have played college football for three years, but checks into his background showed it wasn't true.

A biography released by Notre Dame when it announced his hiring said O'Leary received a master's degree from New York University in 1972. O'Leary was a student there but did not receive a degree, said John Beckman, assistant vice president for public affairs at NYU. O'Leary, also never earned a letter playing football at New Hampshire even though his biography says he earned three. In fact, the school said he never played in a game.

This all stemmed from a handwritten bio he turned in to Syracuse University when he was hired in 1980. Something O'Leary had done 21 years before brought down his coaching career in its finest hour. O'Leary doesn't discuss the matter these days, and for good reason. Who'd want to relive the best and worst week of your life?

Head coach at Notre Dame for all of five days.

Like I said, that should have been the end of the story. But this is America, remember?

O'Leary found solace in coaching, and wasn't out of work for long. Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Tice hired O'Leary a few months later and made him the defensive line coach. In 2002 he helped coach Chris Hovan to an All-Pro season, and put Kenny Mixon into a position to notch 82 tackles. A year later O'Leary became the defensive coordinator and the Vikings remained a strong defensive unit.

Then the Golden Knights came calling. UCF had gained national attention as the alma mater of current Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who led UCF to a 9-2 record in 1998. But the Golden Knights never got to a bowl game. As an independent with no bowl ties, no one wanted the team, which had gone from NCAA Division III to Division I-A in just 17 years.

UCF kept winning, but never got much attention. They joined the Mid-American Conference in 2002, but it wasn't inviting. Made up mostly of Midwest schools, the Golden Knights were out of place. They had a 6-2 record in MAC play in 2002, and went 7-5, but a 3-9 season in 2003 cost Mike Kruczek his job with two games to play. Alan Gooch took over as interim coach. Several players had even been suspended academic problems, and the team's graduation rate was a paltry 33 percent.

When O'Leary took over, the Golden Knights had lost four in a row. The program needed help, a recruiter with a deft touch who could cultivate the fertile lands of Florida football and rebuild what had been an up-and-coming program. And O'Leary needed a place to coach without huge expectations, a place where he could rehab his own reputation while rebuilding the program's.

Senior running back Alex Haynes understood.

"Everybody makes mistakes," Haynes said. "I feel like he's more than qualified. We all know who he is. He wouldn't have the NFL defensive coordinator job if he's not qualified."

So O'Leary moved to the happiest place on earth. Disney World, Sea World, Isleworth — theme parks blend into neighborhoods. Heck, Disney even built it's own neighborhood, as bucolic and as "Leave it to Beaver" as you could imagine. Here, O'Leary would try to fit in, not stand out.

"I have been on top of the radar so much of my life I am enjoying just where I am going right now," O'Leary said.

How much fun was it last year, George? Zero wins, 0-11. In their last year in the MAC, the Golden Knights were nothing more than Bantha fodder. But O'Leary got the under-the-radar experience he wanted at UCF. And he had the positive impact he desired.

The football team had its best grade point average in the fall 2004 semester as a Division I-A school (2.779). Eighty-two percent of O'Leary's first recruiting class earned academic honor roll accolades. Forty percent of the team earned a 3.0 GPA or better in fall 2004. That was enough to earn O'Leary and his team some respect after a tumultuous 2003. And that was all they needed.

But you hire a football coach to win games, right? You can only live on small victories for so long. O'Leary needed a winning season this year and he's closing in. Entering Conference USA and riding a then-15-game losing streak, the Golden Knights were in dire need of some national respect. And after losses to South Carolina — on ESPN — and South Florida, UCF was no closer and now had a national-worst 17-game losing streak.

Then something wonderful happened — Marshall came to town. The Thundering Herd was also in its first season in C-USA. Each was looking for its first win in its new conference. Quarterback Stephen Moffett, who was 0-13 as a starting quarter, threw for 290 yards and a touchdown. Imagine his joy at finally ending that losing streak, and O'Leary's pride for his players.

"They believed in what we were doing, but we didn't make it easy on ourselves," O'Leary said after the Golden Knights took a 20-0 lead and then had to sweat out a Thundering Herd comeback.

When the joy and euphoria relented, the Golden Knights won again, defeating Sun Belt Conference bottom feeder Louisiana-Lafayette, 24-21.

Then came Memphis, a team that just two years ago won the New Orleans Bowl and came armed with one of the best rushers in the nation, senior DeAngelo Williams. Well, the Golden Knights "held" Williams to 136 yards rushing — this is a guy who had four 200-yard rushing games this season, so that is an accomplishment. Meanwhile the Golden Knights shredded the Tigers' defense for a 38-17 victory.

In doing so UCF joined South Carolina (2000) and Boston College (1979) as the only NCAA teams to put together at least a three-game winning streak one season after an 0-11 season. UCF is doing it by relying on at least 10 true freshmen playing some kind of role on a regular basis.

Wide receiver Rocky Ross, tailback Kevin Smith, cornerback Joe Burnett and offensive lineman Pat Brown are just some of the new recruits pointing the Golden Knights toward a bowl berth.

That's right, a bowl berth.

The Golden Knights have four games left, and the next two are key. They travel to East Carolina Oct. 29 and then host Houston on Nov. 5. Win at least one of those games, and the next two games are winnable, even if they're on the road at Alabama-Birmingham on Nov. 12 and Rice on Nov. 19. A 3-1 finish puts O'Leary's squad at seven victories, and the conference has five bowl ties.

The Golden Knights may not be able to reach the C-USA title game, although they could if they win out and possibly claim the East Division title, but there's a great chance the Golden Knights could earn one of those bowl berths that have eluded them since they moved to Division I-A in 1996.

And that's not all.

O'Leary's got big plans for this program, located smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest recruiting hotbeds in the nation. UCF's already got a state of the art fieldhouse and training facility, and financing was just approved for the Golden Knights' new on-campus football stadium, which would seat 45,000 and open in 2007.

And that includes getting his team more face time on the big networks. After that opener at South Carolina on ESPN, the rest of his games have gotten the CSTV treatment. That's hard to get used to when your last gig had a big contract with CBS.

"I don't particularly like playing at 6:00 at night," O'Leary said. "I think as we start to win and the marketing and television games start to come around, I hope those games will get changed to noon or 3:30 p.m.When you play at night all the time you lose half a day. You are sitting at the hotel all day with your team. You kill Saturday with it and then Sunday you are right back at it again. I used to enjoy getting up and playing the Jefferson Pilot noon game or the 3:30 ABC game. You are done and the kids have a little more time to themselves."

O'Leary may get his wish sooner than he thinks.