An occasional foray onto the nation's hottest seats.

Stipulated: Central Floridaâs George OâLeary is a pretty good football coach. Problem: Heâs also a guy whom controversy has made a habit of following around. During an otherwise solid stretch at Georgia Tech, he attracted unwanted headlines when a backup offensive lineman left the team after OâLeary sicced a quartet of D-linemen on him for missing too many blocks in practice. We all remember the fanciful yarn-spinninâ on the old résumé that earned O'Leary the title of shortest-tenured head coach in Notre Dame history. And last March, his UCF tenure was marred by the death of receiver Ereck Plancher after a workout some teammates described as the toughest they'd endured at the school. Coming off a frustrating season and a brief, ill-advised feud with the local media, OâLeary has an uphill battle to prove to UCF administrators that his continued employment is worth the negative press.

Why he was hired. OâLeary made a name for himself with not one but two successful stints at Georgia Tech. In the first, as the Yellow Jacketsâ defensive coordinator from 1987 to 1991, he earned a national championship ring; in the second, he spun an interim tag into the full-time head-coaching position and steered the Jackets out of the disastrous Bill Lewis era, snagging a pair of New Yearâs Day bowl bids and notching a rare three-year winning streak over hated Georgia. After riding out the Notre Dame résumé controversy, OâLeary landed on his feet as defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings in 2002, whose defense he improved from last in the NFL to 10th in his first year.

"Uh-oh" moment. As frustrating as OâLearyâs 0-11 debut with the Golden Knights was in 2004, he turned things around in a hurry, going 8-5 the following year and taking UCF to the Conference USA title game in their very first season in the league. No, the red flag came on March 18, 2008, during what should have been a routine "mat drill" at UCFâs indoor practice facility:

"Everybody was struggling at times," one player said. "... But (Ereck) was running, and I could tell something wasn't right. His eyes got real dark, and he was squinting like he was blinded by the sun. He was making this moaning noise, trying to breathe real hard."

The players also said Plancher, a 19-year-old receiver from Naples, Fla., fell during one run.

"The coaches were yelling at him to get up, and of course, he came in last," one of the players said.

Golden Knights coach George O'Leary disputed the players' account.

"I did not see him struggle on the field," O'Leary said. "From my professional opinion, what should have been done for his care was being done."

The four players [said] O'Leary singled out Plancher during a team huddle and cursed at him for lack of effort during the final sprint. O'Leary denied cursing at Plancher, but recalled telling people around him, "He's better than that."

The players reported that Plancher continued to struggle during the final jumping-jacks drill of the day and then collapsed as the team was parting ways; he was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead about an hour later. An autopsy revealed that Plancher suffered from sickle-cell anemia, which the team had known about for more than a year.

Embarrassing attempt to right the ship. Stung by criticism over his handling of the Plancher incident, OâLeary decided it was time to pick a fight with the local paper, refusing to speak to the Orlando Sentinel during Conference USA media day and barring his players from doing the same. Deeming the Sentinel's coverage âbiased,â âsensationalized,â and ethically âquestionable,â OâLeary said he wouldnât end his boycott until the paper corrected the errors it had made in its reporting â though bizarrely, he refused to say what exactly those errors were.

This boycott lasted all of 16 days before OâLeary caved and granted the Sentinel full access to players and coaches at UCF Media Day in August. This fortitude, or lack thereof, was mirrored in the Knightâs play the ensuing season: They lost five games by two scores or more and finished next-to-last in Conference USAâs Eastern Division.

Can this marriage be saved? According to Iliana Limon, who serves as the Sentinelâs UCF beat writer and contributed to the paperâs coverage of the Ereck Plancher case, that may depend not on OâLearyâs public image post-Plancher but on an even less forgiving metric: the bottom line of ticket sales.

George OâLeary has the ultimate job security in this economic climate â a $5 million buyout. OâLearyâs lucrative contract, which was signed soon after he led UCF to the first Division I bowl game in school history and won his second career National Coach of the Year award, helped him keep his job despite major problems in 2008. UCF took a public-relations hit following the death of freshman wide receiver Ereck Plancher during offseason conditioning drills supervised by OâLeary and his staff in March 2008, posted a 4-8 record and had another football player collapse during a workout due to poor nutrition and severe dehydration in December. The buyout and his previous success kept OâLeary employed in 2008, but if his team shows no sign of improvement in 2009 and season ticket sales continue to decline, it may get too expensive to keep him.

Approximate hotness of seat. The highest setting on a GE Trivection oven â letâs say somewhere between 500 and 550 degrees. If OâLeary wins enough games in â09 to drive ticket sales back up and earn a bowl bid, the Plancher incident will no longer hang quite as heavily around his neck. But another losing season of tepid ticket sales may use up whatever margin for error he has left.