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TCU pre B12

is it a fair comparison to put UCF in the shoes of TCU? how did their facilities look before B12 revenue? How do their facilities look now?

They may have always been a few levels ahead of UCF based on the fact they’ve been around for a long long time.

Curious if their 2010/2011 facilities were already amazing or how long after the 2012 transition it took, if anyone knows.

OT: Executive Suite -- Winter Springs/Oviedo Area

My wife has an employee living in Black Hammock that gets horrible internet speeds (<4Mbps) with no improvement imminent. He now needs better performance which leads to looking for an Executive Suite. There doesn't seem to be anything in WS/Oviedo, therefore, I look to you FIW to see if anyone has extra space in their office they'd be interested in sub-leasing. It would need to be an office (not a cube) as his company would need security of a locked office when he's not present.

Lease arrangement would be with a large $4B software company so very secure terms and tenant (and boss) are both UCF alums.

Thanks
Terry

Knightline 285 - Portal is Popping - My Game Notes In Long Form

On this weeks show:

-We take a long hard look at the implications of NIL and our future, the portal, redshirt rules etc., Mikey Keene
-We start the transition to hoops
-Trey goes in depth on NIL, The Leadership on this team, Gus Vs Oleary Vs Frost on leadership, Player leaders and how they made the difference, His thoughts on David Gibbs
-We discuss the portals effect on Fans, Teams, and players
-Our regular season results on our predictions
-We touch on the Military Bowl
-News and Notes

Unfortunately we didn't go into the game so I will post my notes below: (These are a copy and paste of my notes, I haven't had time to edit them, and are in the format I use for the show so please be kind and ask me to elaborate if needed)

  • I am not even Mad. I had a great experience at Tulane. It was the nicest opposing fanbase I have ever encountered. They were very hospitable. Take aways from the experience:
    • The campus needs to learn how to host big games. It really highlighted that we have moved beyond the AAC, it felt really small time
    • I met several fellow fans, dungeon members, twitter followers, Shareholder Sean, RBJ from Space Knights, and Jarrod Baker’s Dad (super nice)
    • I played and beat two Tulane fans before the game in cornhole and beat them handily. We had some of their authentic gumbo and red fish. I had several fans constantly thanking us for being there and apologizing for them winning
    • Only a few drunk college kids talked smack, I ignored and smiled, as Tulane needs this to build a fanbase. It reminded me of how big a difference our OCS made.
    • The flyover was awesome, lines were short, the bathrooms had troughs, stalls, and urinals. Ours are nicer. Their parking situation sucked, if you go get the pass to the tailgate village. The concourse was teeny.
    • Our fans and their fans were loud. It sounded great on tv. Our fans were out of their seats and Tulane fans mostly sat. There was a sense from them that they were going to flub this ala UCF Fans
    • The drive was easy, folks were friendly, but I was not impressed with the campus.
  • Comments on the game:
    • This was a game of what if’s for me. We could have won with a healthy JRP (maybe even one that was not) and we could have won with Mikey.
    • Castellanos was not prepared, had a limited playbook, and the offensive line did not help either qb. They were getting pressure with a three man front. Grable was atrocious and was beat often
    • When JRP came back in, Gus’s offensive plays were a thing of beauty. There were a lot of wrinkles. Unique ways to set up screens, stretching the field like a spread offense, the throw by Harvey was a thing of beauty.
    • A hobbled JRP did an adequate job as a pocket passer but ran out of time.
    • Tulane changed a lot defensively. Tulane’s plan was to stack the box (they traditionally drop 8). They had spies on O’keefe and Plumlee the entire game. When there was not movement by whomever was being spied, they crashed the player to have another defender blitzing. Because they figured out that Plumblee could not run they plugged the A gap. After JRP was back in and with Castellanos in they sold out on the run. Bowser and Harvey still had decent days running, but this highlighted JRP as the difference maker. He is essentially a two back wildcat back there. JRP still escaped, but on many plays where he would normally take off for a big gain, he stayed in the pocket. I think this highlighted how much better he makes our Oline. He put it all on the line with the Hammy and still got off good passes.
    • If Mikey were in we would have won this game. The passing game was open and we became one deminsional out of necessity. There were significant drops from Harvey, Hudson, and O’keefe in this game. There were also great passes from Plumblee and some plays placement would have made catching the ball easier. I could also tell on some plays that he was trying to place the receiver in the best position to catch the ball. Mikey throws a better ball and could have defeated this Tulane team as well. Tommy was not ready, he hadn’t run the 1’s and 2’s, Gus called very conservatively because of it (barely passed), he didn’t have the reads down, and he couldn’t just out athlete this team.
    • This team was within three points at the 8 minute mark. The defense let us down on 8 plays. Tulane beat us on big plays. The issues that we saw were are all based on bad angles, arm tackling, and blown coverage. Nakai Martinez had a huge broken play when he bit on the run. The defense was spying Spears trying to protect the edges. The corners were playing up in the first half, not covering a man and were cheating on the inside angles which stretched the zone. Pratt recognized it early and started hitting the flats. The guys had too much ground to cover and ended up having to take bad angles. When we got pressure in the second half Pratt was rattled. We didn't get that pressure consistently as we weren’t overloading the A gaps like we normally did. Toward the end of the second we went back to more of a normal defense. In the past we used LB shifts to the strong edge to cover the edges and relying on the safety/edge rusher on the opposite side of the line to cover the counter. This time we were bringing up the knight position and losing a body in the secondary. This was all predicated on covering the edge. We did this for the most part successfully, but got gashed when we didn’t have help in one on one situations and they took advantage.
    • Based on the stats we should have won the game (obviously not yards) Here are some crazy Data Points:
      • We had the ball for almost 10 more minutes
      • We had 96 offensive plays versus 64 for Tulane
      • They averaged 11.9 ypa passing and 8.1 rushing. These were all from big plays.
      • We had more first downs (24) versus their 20
      • We held Pratt to 60% passing and we only completed 50%. Our qb’s were constantly under pressure, there were three drops, etc. This dline was getting pressure with 3. There is no excuse for that. Castellanos was 2-8 and had no pocket.
      • We won the turnover margin with 3 and almost a 4th fumble. We also got an interception. We are one to one for turnovers to end the season when before opponents were getting 2 TO for every one of ours.
      • Tulane was only 36% on third downs and 0 on fourth downs. They only converted 4/11 attempts. Again this shows we lost on big plays.
      • We converted 6 for 26% on 3rd downs, but were 7 out of 10 on fourth. We are going to miss the wild Bowser. We set up for 3rds and short on offense. We were 47% on the season.
    • I never thought we would lose this game. We may have won it with a hobbled JRP as a pocket passer. He played well enough.
    • Celiscar played really well.
    • PFF Offense: 62.3, second worst all season, 56.7 defensively second only to the cows for the worst performance. This defense was tired, beat up, and lacked depth. There was a huge drop off after Navy.

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***UCF PFF Defense Player Grades - 45-28 loss to Tulane (AAC Championship) 🏈

Rivals has continued its partnership with Pro Football Focus (PFF) which grants me access to their comprehensive analytics and statistical tools.

After each game, two separate analysts grade every player on each play of the game and the two totals are averaged out. Obviously no subjective ranking system is perfect, but I am finding that my real world impressions of a player in a certain game usually reflects the PFF grade.

PFF Grading Scale

90 and above - Elite
80 to 89 - Great
70 to 79 - Good
60 to 69 - Average to Above Average
50 - 59 - Below Average
49 and below - Poor

Season Defensive Grades (by game)

South Carolina State - 88.4
Louisville - 62.5
FAU - 63.3
Georgia Tech - 70.0
SMU - 66.0
Temple - 66.8
ECU - 65.1
Cincinnati - 63.9
Memphis - 67.2
Tulane - 64.3
Navy - 77.2
South Florida - 53.2
Tulane (CCG) - 56.7

Overall Defensive Grades

DT Matthew Alexander (12) - 73.7
DT Lee Hunter (12) - 72.7
DE Tre'Mon Morris-Brash (56) - 68.4
S Jarvis Ware (39) - 68.2
LB Jason Johnson (64) - 67.7
DT Ricky Barber (55) - 64.6
DT Anthony Montalvo (55) - 61.9
CB Demari Henderson (2) - 60.0
S Divaad Wilson (61) - 59.5
CB Corey Thornton (44) - 58.3
LB Walter Yates (16) - 57.4
DE K.D. McDaniel (8) - 56.9
CB Davonte Brown (60) - 56.2
LB Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste (63) - 55.5
DE Josh Celiscar (64) - 52.0
CB Justin Hodges (47) - 50.9
S Koby Perry (22) - 49.6
CB Brandon Adams (21) - 43.6
CB Nikai Martinez (3) - 24.5

Obviously not a great team grade. The backup DTs did well in their limited reps.

Here's the breakdown by position:

Defensive End (3):

DE Tre'Mon Morris-Brash (56) - 68.4
DE K.D. McDaniel (8) - 56.9
DE Josh Celiscar (64) - 52.0

Defensive Tackle (4):

DT Matthew Alexander (12) - 73.7
DT Lee Hunter (12) - 72.7
DT Ricky Barber (55) - 64.6
DT Anthony Montalvo (55) - 61.9

Linebacker (3):

LB Jason Johnson (64) - 67.7
LB Walter Yates (16) - 57.4
LB Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste (63) - 55.5

Safety (4):

S Jarvis Ware (39) - 68.2
S Demari Henderson (2) - 60.0
S Divaad Wilson (61) - 59.5
S Koby Perry (22) - 49.6

Corner (5):

CB Corey Thornton (44) - 58.3
CB Davonte Brown (60) - 56.2
CB Justin Hodges (47) - 50.9
CB Brandon Adams (21) - 43.6
CB Nikai Martinez (3) - 24.5

Pressure Tracker (combination of sacks, hits and hurries):

3 - Tre'Mon Morris-Brash
1 - Josh Celiscar, Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste
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Transfer Portal -The Dungeon

I didn’t have time to read through all the threads. Did the Dungeon lose any starters yesterday? @dali drama Coming back next year? @San Diego Knight gonna follow Heupel? @ucfsky headed for the BIG10?

On the flip side, what are our big needs? The AAC board is pretty active maybe we can poach a troll or two with our P5 prestige.

***UCF PFF Offense Player Grades - 45-28 loss to Tulane (AAC Championship) 🏈

Rivals has continued its partnership with Pro Football Focus (PFF) which grants me access to their comprehensive analytics and statistical tools.

After each game, two separate analysts grade every player on each play of the game and the two totals are averaged out. Obviously no subjective ranking system is perfect, but I am finding that my real world impressions of a player in a certain game usually reflects the PFF grade.

PFF Grading Scale

90 and above - Elite
80 to 89 - Great
70 to 79 - Good
60 to 69 - Average to Above Average
50 - 59 - Below Average
49 and below - Poor

Team Offensive Grade (by game)

South Carolina State - 80.2
Louisville - 64.5
FAU - 72.7
Georgia Tech - 54.3
SMU - 80.4
Temple - 87.3
ECU - 68.0
Cincinnati - 76.5
Memphis - 82.6
Tulane - 64.8
Navy - 67.1
South Florida - 74.8
Tulane (CCG) - 62.3

Overall Offensive Player Grades (Snaps Played)

RB Johnny Richardson (20) - 75.3
WR Xavier Townsend (22) - 70.5
RB R.J. Harvey (24) - 69.2
C Matt Lee (98) - 68.7
RT Ryan Swoboda (98) - 65.3
RG Lokahi Pauole (98) - 64.6
RB Isaiah Bowser (56) - 63.4
WR Kobe Hudson (74) - 61.5
WR Ryan O'Keefe (62) - 61.3
QB John Rhys Plumlee (69) - 61.0
QB Thomas Castellanos (26) - 60.2
RB Trillion Coles (2) - 60.0
LT Paul Rubelt (4) - 59.4
LG Sam Jackson (98) - 59.0
LT Tylan Grable (98) - 56.8
WR Javon Baker (82) - 56.6
WR Stephen Martin (4) - 56.2
WR Jaylon Griffin (2) - 55.9
TE Zach Marsh Wojan (43) - 50.2
TE Alec Holler (98) - 43.9

Plumlee I guess didn't have wow running plays to boost his grade. Thomas graded average.

Offensive Line Grades

Pass Blocking:


LG Sam Jackson - 77.7
RT Ryan Swoboda - 70.4
RG Lokahi Pauole - 64.9
C Matt Lee - 64.6
LT Tylan Grable - 58.4

Run Blocking:

C Matt Lee - 67.3
RG Lokahi Pauole - 63.9
RT Ryan Swoboda - 62.3
LT Tylan Grable - 56.5
LG Sam Jackson - 52.8

Quarterback Grades

John Rhys Plumlee - 60.9 passing grade
Thomas Castellanos - 60.7 passing game

Passing Pressure Grades for John Rhys Plumlee:

Kept Clean - 62.0
Under Pressure - 58.7
Not Blitzed - 66.3
When Blitzed - 50.8

Passing Pressure Grades for Thomas Castellanos

Kept Clean - 59.3
Under Pressure - 62.4
Not Blitzed - 70.3
When Blitzed - 46.6

A closer look at passing depth for John Rhys Plumlee:

Deep (20+): 1 of 3 for 25 yards - 66.4
Medium (10-19): 2 of 9 for 32 yards, 1 TD - 54.3
Short (0-9): 11 of 15 for 94 yards - 71.3
Behind LOS: 7 of 8 for 58 yards - 66.9

A closer look at passing depth for Thomas Castellanos:

Deep (20+): 0 of 2 - 50.8
Medium (10-19): 0 of 2 - 67.3
Short (0-9): 1 of 3 for 5 yards - 66.5
Behind LOS: 1 of 1 for 2 yards - 60.6

Rushing Grades

Johnny Richardson - 68.6
R.J. Harvey - 66.1
Isaiah Bowser - 63.1
Xavier Townsend - 62.6
Ryan O'Keefe - 59.9
John Rhys Plumlee - 59.6
Thomas Castellanos - 58.6

Wide Receiver Grades

R.J. Harvey - 76.2
Johnny Richardson - 72.8
Xavier Townsend - 65.8
Kobe Hudson - 63.1
Isaiah Bowser - 61.7
Ryan O'Keefe - 61.1
Javon Baker - 56.2
Alec Holler - 45.6

Hudson, ROK and Holler had drops.

Insider’s Thread: UCF communicating with three-star Homestead DB David Jester

ORLANDO – The recruiting process is still up in the air for three-star Florida defensive back David Jester. Jester rose up the ranks with Homestead High School as a receiver but made the move to safety for his senior campaign. Playing the new position, next level scouts are still evaluating Jester.

The vast majority of recruiting communication for Jester is going through his Homestead coaches. He shared which programs are currently in the mix.

“Ohio, the Ohio Bobcats, UCF, FAMU, and FAU,” Jester said.

Asked about his relationship with the Knights’ coaching staff, Jester replied, “They talk to me here and there; they are reaching out. Half the time they are reaching out to my coaches. I have to get my transcripts over to them; I am home schooled.”

NOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

Jester spoke about taking on the role of playing safety for Homestead.

“Receiver to safety, that transaction was great,” Jester shared. “I play the field better at safety. I can see everything. I’m a ballhawk. We needed help at safety, you gotta help the team how you can help your team.”

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Iowa State three-star DT commit Jason Hammond sets two official visits

Hammond covers his OV to CU and previews December officials to Virginia and UCF. He also updates his recruiting status with the Cyclones.

OT: NCAA Bracketology predicts 9/10 Big XII teams make March Madness

The first bracketology released by Joe Lunardi predicts every single Big XII team to be in March Madness except for Oklahoma State. He currently has Oklahoma State as a tournament bubble team.

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***Recruiting Recap - Nov. 23 ⚔🏈

Transfer Portal and recruiting season is beginning to heat up.

FCS seasons for non-playoff teams have completed, which means those players can now enter the transfer portal. And as we approach the final weekend of the regular season, more players from the FBS level are announcing their intent to enter the portal.

UCF is evaluating several of these early portal entries and on Monday night we had our first public offer: Duquesne WR Abdul Janneh.


Janneh, who is 6-foot-3 and 180 pounds, originally hails from Hanover, Pa. 2022 was his breakout season with 43 receptions for 579 yards and nine touchdowns. In their season opener at Florida State, Janneh had three catches for 44 yards and a touchdown.

Other early offers for Janneh include Old Dominion, Appalachian State, Marshall, Washington State, Virginia Tech, Georgia State, NC State, Charlotte, Arkansas State, Toledo, Utah State, Coastal Carolina and Georgia Southern.

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Charlotte WR Grant DuBose (6-3, 200) who is originally from Montgomery, Ala., entered the Portal Tuesday morning. DuBose hasn't tweeted about college interest yet, but I am pretty sure he was an immediate offer for UCF. The bigger question is how widespread the interest will be.


DuBose was very productive the last two seasons:

2021 - 62 rec., 892 yards, 6 TD
2022 - 63, rec., 787 yards, 9 TD

Prior to that, he played the 2019 season at Division II Miles College. He didn't garner any FBS or FCS offers coming out of high school. He would have two years of eligibility remaining.

Here's a 2021 Pete Thamel story about how he went from working to Wal-Mart to becoming a top WR:


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Miami DT Allan Haye announced his intent to enter the portal on Tuesday afternoon.

A redshirt freshman, Haye appeared in 26 total snaps through four games this season. He was offered by the previous UCF staff.

He has yet to make an impact, but would have three years of eligibility remaining. A name to watch.


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Florida offensive line transfer Joshua Braun visited UCF unofficially for the Navy game this past weekend.

A four-star recruit in the Class of 2020, Braun started seven games for the Gators during the 2021 season but saw his status change with the coaching change in Gainesville. He visited Florida State last week and also has offers from Penn State, Duke, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State.

After taking 2022 as a redshirt season, Braun could have up to three seasons of eligibility remaining if he were to utilize his extra COVID year (he would be classified as a redshirt junior in 2023).

He recently married and will be looking for the best fit for both he and his wife. I haven't been able to connect personally with Braun, but I think UCF's proximity really helps. FSU has not yet offered.

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As for high school recruiting, you can never have enough defensive tackles and UCF is aiming to flip Iowa State commit Jason Hammond of St. Thomas Aquinas. Hammond has scheduled an official visit to UCF the weekend of Dec. 9. He previously visited Colorado in November and will visit Virginia a few days before his UCF visit.

Ryan Wright posted an interview in which Hammond talks about UCF and his relationship with Kenny Martin:


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Eustis WR Tyree Patterson also visited UCF last weekend unofficially for the Navy game. He and his father spent time meeting with Gus Malzahn prior to the game. He will visit UF officially on Dec. 9 and is set to visit UCF the following weekend of Dec. 16.

Despite his UF commitment, Patterson has remained a top target for UCF and there is mutual interest.

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There will be a lot of activity that is just getting started, so I'll try to compile recaps like this as news warrant, whether it's daily or every couple days.
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