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UCF's offense finally put it all together in the 41-19 win against SMU.

After a slow start, John Rhys Plumlee and the offense exploded for 31 unanswered points in the second half.

Plumlee, who struggled passing the ball against Georgia Tech, rebounded with perhaps his best game completing 20 of 29 passes for 316 yards and two touchdowns.

We caught up with offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey to talk about the big performance.

Chip was "excited" how they played. The first drive of the second half was a huge shift. They responded well after halftime. The RBs ran hard, Isaiah and R.J. who got the bulk of the carries. SMU loaded the box. Javon Baker was impressive, made contested catches. He does a great job catching the ball in traffic. Kobe Hudson had some big catches. JRP settled in nicely in the second half. JRP did great in decision making in the RPO game.

They knew SMU had an explosive offense, so they needed to make their possessions count and control the game. The OL jelled in the second half. Played real physical. The extended drives with points were huge.

What was the key difference in the second half? He said they simplified things, which helped. They made adjustments at halftime. Made it as simple as they could. Basic football sometimes still wins, throwing, catching, blocking. That was the key. SMU put extra guys in the box and they tried to make it as simple as possible, and the players executed.

He thought it was an overall good performance by the OL. He said their push was really good in the second half.

He loves YAC. The old days of catching open throws and falling down are no longer exciting plays. You need guys who can make 50/50 catches and then can do something with it. Javon has a knack for doing that. Kobe showed off as well. And ROK can really run. The first guy never gets him.

JRP, vs. 0 Coverage, he's becoming more familiar with his WRs and understanding when to run and throw it. He makes plays when it breaks down too. He's also learning where to make throws so WRs can catch it.

This was a good game for Kobe Hudson. He was all smiles in the locker room. It was good for him to see some hard work pay off.

The overall offensive performance was a great confidence builder.

The success of Colton Boomer in the kicking game has definitely been a "shot in the arm" on offense. The kickoffs from Ryker Casey were also impressive. Also commended Andrew Osteen for the pooch punts.

I asked where JRP has improved the most through the five games, he said it's the overall execution of the offense and understanding why they're doing something. It's still a learning process. SMU wasn't going to let him pull the ball and run it. He works extremely hard. He has contagious energy. No ego. He's the first one to say if he missed up. He doesn't point fingers.

R.J. Harvey is really coming on. He's a big guy, strong, has good speed and vision.

Bowser had a really good block in pass protection.

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 - 85.7
Louisville - 63.0
FAU - 65.3
Georgia Tech - 72.3
SMU - 68.7

Overall Defensive Grades

DT Kervins Choute (5) - 76.3
LB Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste (68) - 75.2
S Divaad Wilson (64) - 72.6
S Jarvis Ware (35) - 70.4
CB Corey Thornton (67) - 68.5
DT Ricky Barber (57) - 68.3
S Demari Henderson (14) - 67.9
CB Nikai Martinez (32) - 65.0
CB Brandon Adams (51) - 64.7
LB Jason Johnson (78) - 64.6
CB Davonte Brown (55) - 64.1
LB Kam Moore (9) - 63.1
DE Jamaal Johnson (15) - 62.6
S Koby Perry (72) - 62.5
DE Josh Celiscar (83) - 61.7
DE Dallaz Corbitt (10) - 59.1
DE Tre'Mon Morris-Brash (78) - 58.4
DT Lee Hunter (31) - 55.3
LB Walter Yates (30) - 55.0
DT Anthony Montalvo (53) - 52.8
DT Matthew Alexander (40) - 51.4
S William Wells (8) - 49.0
CB Jaiden Francois (4) - 46.1

JJB on top among starters with Divaad Wilson not far behind. Every primary defensive lineman (Choute barely played) graded around average or below.

Here's the breakdown by position:

Defensive End (4):

DE Jamaal Johnson (15) - 62.6
DE Josh Celiscar (83) - 61.7
DE Dallaz Corbitt (10) - 59.1
DE Tre'Mon Morris-Brash (78) - 58.4

A week after a poor grade, K.D. McDaniel did not play (he's already redshirted).

Defensive Tackle (5):

DT Kervins Choute (5) - 76.3
DT Ricky Barber (57) - 68.3
DT Lee Hunter (31) - 55.3
DT Anthony Montalvo (53) - 52.8
DT Matthew Alexander (40) - 51.4

Keenan Hester is out for undisclosed reasons (will ask Gus for status on Monday). Lee Hunter was the primary benefactor. He had mostly been getting reps in the mid-teens and here he is with 31.

Linebacker (4):

LB Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste (68) - 75.2
LB Jason Johnson (78) - 64.6
LB Kam Moore (9) - 63.1
LB Walter Yates (30) - 55.0

Branden Jennings was removed off the depth chart and did not play. Has only appeared in four games this year. This was the career debut for Kam Moore.

Safety (5):

S Divaad Wilson (64) - 72.6
S Jarvis Ware (35) - 70.4
S Demari Henderson (14) - 67.9
S Koby Perry (72) - 62.5
S William Wells (8) - 49.0

Quadric Bullard and Dyllon Lester were out with injuries.

Corner (6):

CB Corey Thornton (67) - 68.5
CB Nikai Martinez (32) - 65.0
CB Brandon Adams (51) - 64.7
CB Davonte Brown (55) - 64.1
CB Justin Hodges (64) - 59.1
CB Jaiden Francois (4) - 46.1

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

3 - Tre'Mon Morris-Brash, Ricky Barber
2 - Jason Johnson, Walter Yates
1 - Matthew Alexander, Kervins Choute, Dallaz Corbitt, Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste, Divaad Wilson, Anthony Montalvo.

3 cabana tickets to Temple Space game. Sec 229 Row 3 - $100 obo. Can split up

Tigers are in first.

1) Memphis 2-0 (4-1)
2) Cincinnati 1-0 (4-1)
2) Tulane 1-0 (4-1)
2) UCF 1-0 (4-1)
5) Navy 1-1 (1-3), beat ECU so holds tiebreaker over them
6) ECU 1-1 (3-2)
7) Houston 0-1 (2-3)
7) SMU 0-1 (2-3)
7) Temple 0-1 (2-3)
7) Tulsa 0-1 (2-3)
7) cow u 0-1 (1-4)

nm

Houston Chronicle:

There is a mounting frustration, among the Cougars fan base and key athletic donors, for this season’s struggles. Coming off a 12-win season, UH was the preseason favorite to win the American Athletic Conference and play in a New Year’s Six bowl. Another strong season would serve as a springboard for next year’s jump to the Big 12.

With five years and a guaranteed $13.2 million left on his contract, Holgorsen is in no immediate jeopardy of being fired despite the Cougars’ early-season struggles in Year 4.

“Dana Holgorsen is our football coach,” UH board of regents chairman Tilman Fertitta told the Houston Chronicle on Monday.

Barring a total collapse over the final seven games, the belief inside UH circles is that Holgorsen will be given at least one more year as the school transitions to the Big 12. That comes with some caveats, namely that Holgorsen does not lose the locker room, the team shows improvement during the final two months and Holgorsen considers assuming offensive play-calling duties.

Any talk of parting ways would begin with a hefty buyout that calls for Holgorsen to be owed 100 percent of his total base salary and non-salary compensation through the 2025 season. He is scheduled to make $4.3 million in 2023, $4.4 million in 2024 and $4.5 million in 2025, which puts him on par with several coaches at Power Five programs. That buyout amount drops to 60 percent, or $5,580,000, of Holgorsen’s base salary and non-salary compensation for the final two years.

I understand we are loaded at RB but I can't believe MAR isn't being used at all. He won games for us last year (ECU). Anyone have insight into what we can expect going forward? If we aren't using him should we expect position change or another transfer?

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 - 78.6
Louisville - 64.9
FAU - 73.5
Georgia Tech - 54.5
SMU - 74.5

Overall Offensive Player Grades (Snaps Played)

WR Javon Baker (58) - 82.0
WR Kobe Hudson (29) - 77.4
QB John Rhys Plumlee (68) - 75.4
RB R.J. Harvey (16) - 74.1
LG Samuel Jackson (70) - 68.7
WR Ryan O'Keefe (50) - 67.8
RG Lokahi Pauole (70) - 67.5
RG John Harris (3) - 65.4
LT Tylan Grable (70) - 65.0
C Matt Lee (70) - 61.7
TE Alec Holler (63) - 60.9
RB Trillion Coles (2) - 60.7
TE Max Holler (3) - 60.3
RT Chidoziri Maghiro (1) - 60.0
RG Edward Collins (3) - 60.0
LG Cameron Kinnie (3) - 59.8
RB Mark-Antony Richards (3) - 59.8
RB Isaiah Bowser (46) - 58.6
WR Xavier Townsend (17) - 57.4
WR Jaylon Griffin (2) - 57.2
LT Paul Rubelt (6) - 57.0
RT Ryan Swoboda (73) - 56.7
RB Johnny Richardson (10) - 56.1
WR Stephen Martin (13) - 54.9
TE Zach Marsh-Wojan (35) - 54.2
TE Kemore Gamble (16) - 53.5
QB Thomas Castellanos (3) - 46.8

JRP's high grade is almost exclusively because of his passing. I think there was wrong data for Isaiah Bowser - he had an abnormally low pass blocking grade of 9.3 - that's almost impossible to do. That is dragging down his grade and hopefully should be corrected upon review.

Offensive Line Grades

Pass Blocking:

RG Lokahi Pauole (70) - 88.2
LG Samuel Jackson (70) - 82.2
C Matt Lee (70) - 80.2
LT Tylan Grable (70) - 80.0
RT Ryan Swoboda (73) - 72.0

Run Blocking:

RG Lokahi Pauole (70) - 70.0
LG Samuel Jackson (70) - 66.1
LT Tylan Grable (70) - 58.2
C Matt Lee (70) - 56.9
RT Ryan Swoboda (73) - 51.2

Excellent pass blocking grades for the entire unit, but PFF did not like the run blocking for several of the starting offensive linemen.

Quarterback Grades

John Rhys Plumlee - 86.7 passing grade

Passing Pressure Grades for John Rhys Plumlee:

Kept Clean - 90.2
Under Pressure - 53.1
Not Blitzed - 90.5
When Blitzed - 56.0

A closer look at passing depth for John Rhys Plumlee:

Deep (20+): 3 of 9 for 80 yards, 1 TD - 90.1
Medium (10-19): 4 of 6 for 109 yards - 82.4
Short (0-9): 8 of 8 for 64 yards - 77.3
Behind LOS: 5 of 6 for 63 yards, 1 TD - 50.0

Rushing Grades

R.J. Harvey - 74.8
Isaiah Bowser - 60.3
Ryan O'Keefe - 59.6
Johnny Richardson - 58.3
Thomas Castellanos - 51.2
John Rhys Plumlee - 48.7

Wide Receiver Grades

Javon Baker - 81.2
Kobe Hudson - 76.7
Ryan O'Keefe - 68.1
Alec Holler - 65.2
Trillion Coles - 60.3
Xavier Townsend - 57.2
Johnny Richardson - 57.0
Kemore Gamble - 53.5

Three drops - one each for the top three WRs: Baker, Hudson and ROK.

From an ESPN article this AM. Also has notes on other coaches in, lets say precarious positions.

"If Louisville falls to lowly Virginia on Saturday before an open week, a change is expected. Even if the Cardinals bounce back, their second-half schedule includes four AP top-15 opponents, surging James Madison and defending ACC champion Pitt. Bowl eligibility seems extremely unlikely."

Click to expand...

I'm still in pain over the fact that we lost to this team. TMo needs to get them back on the schedule so we can restore our dignity.

On this week's Sons of UCF LIVE: Former UCF Quarterback Nick Patti joins us to break down the Knights 41-19 win over SMU. Plus, we go Around the Kingdom on UCF Sports and we answer a full Sons Mailbag of questions!

Click here to watch!

Didn’t know where else to post this but lol’d so I thought I’d share it. Login to view embedded media

This was an interesting game to watch. It is perplexing to me how our defense looks like they are going to get absolutely housed during the first few plays of every game. Think UL, FAU, etc... the other team goes through us like a hot knife through butter. We look confused, cant tackle, etc... and then we end up basically shutting the offense down the rest of the game. Really odd how that is playing out. The offense took a bit longer to get goin but once they did they were on fire as well. I don't think many of us would have taken a bet at half time when we were down 13-10 that we would end up scoring 41pts in the game. Literally 31 unanswered points, crazy considering how bad the offense looked in the first half. This game kind of felt like the offense may have turned a corner...

UCF Fast:

• 2nd Half JRP: He figured some shit out in that 2nd half. I think the playing calling from Gus is almost as important as JRP's reads. Gus needs to call the right plays for JRP and i feel like he did that much better in the 2nd half. The quick slants to Baker are a must to keep going. I am not sure what JRP's 2nd half stats were but they had to be elite. I think the only incompletion was that awful Baker drop he is good for once a game. Ran when he needed to, was accurate, put it all together. Big turn around from 1st half.
• 
  
• Baker: Besides that awful drop on the slant he showed why he is on a different level when he gets his hands on the ball. This offense needs to do a better job getting the ball into the hands of Baker, Kobe, Okeefe and Richardson. Those guys can all be dynamic. When we get rolling it is impossible for defenses to key on all those guys and account for JRP.
• 
  
• Okeefe: Great to see him get going. he has been quiet this year and he started looking like 2021 Okeefe today. I know he was banged up, great to see him back at it.
• 
  
• Kobe Perry: That tackle he made on the TE on that 4th down pass was really incredible. That guy was like double his size and he only needed a yard for the first down. That was an amazing play. Overall i felt he played with energy and was around the ball a lot. I assume Bullard was hurt, hopefully he is ok because he is too good of a tackler to not be playing.
• 
  
• Defense Overall: The defense held SMU to 13 pts and that includes basically spotting them 7 to start. TMB had some big plays although i thought we lacked consistent pressure. I hated the big cushions to start the game but hard to argue with the results. Montalvo had himself a game as well. Barber with some nice stops. Solid effort.
• 
  
• UCF Stadium Music/Interaction: For those of you that do not like the Frankie Valley song i do not believe they played it unless i missed it. They did do the lights up and down thing which does get everyone pumped. Just wish they did it when we were on defense. I like how they added the smoke and fireworks to get the crowd going. I really like the house music build up with the smoke. I still feel we could really seperate our game day experience AND get students in the seats if we had a DJ booth in or above the student section really getting after it.
• 
  
• Kicking Game: I really love how we fixed our kicking game. It was awful the first few games and with the change at Kicker and Punter in combo with our kick off guy and Osteen coming in for the short punts, we have a great balance.

UCF Slow:

• Students: I get why some of the normal fans cannot make a Wed night game that was rescheduled twice but what is the students excuse. I assumed students would be in full force and it would be light on the sides and it was the exact opposite. The fans came out and supported, it was a decent crowd all things considered but the thing that was missing was the students. I just don't understand what the hell they are doing on a Wed night? What else are you doing that you cannot come watch the game? Am i missing something here? Any explanation for why there were maybe 1/4 or a 1/5 of the normal amount of students at the game?
• 
  
• Stadium Replays: I shit on this every week but we have to do better. For example the fumble on that first drive for SMU after the blown coverage, i have no idea who caused it. I couldn't tell in real time, tried to watch the replay and of course no replay. How do you not show a replay on a big play like that? We need a bigger jumbo-tron and better lightning but that costs money and time, replays should be an easy get. No valid excuse i an aware of. just do better.
• 
  
• PI Calls: There were a few borderline PI calls but i thought two of them were really bad. The one on Thornton i thought he made a good play on the ball and timed it well and they threw the flag. I believe that saved the drive. Then later, possibly on the same drive, the under thrown ball to the left, possibly back shoulder, their WR held our CB up from making play back on the ball, could have been offensive PI and they called it on us. Those were two really shat calls. Other then that the game was called pretty well, not a lot of penalties but those two were bad and were both drive extenders.
• 
  
• Not Using Richardson: I assume he must have been hurt and if so i will give Gus a pass but how Gus doesnt find more ways to get JR the ball is really beyond me. he is too special to only touch the ball 4 or so times a game. I know we have a lot of mouths to feed but i had to scratch my head on the Coles play on the goal line. Seemed like a weird time for him to get is first carry of the season. I feel like they can line JR up at WR and get him the ball quick out in space. I feel the same way about Gamble, if they want to one on one the WR and stack the box get a mismatch and just lob it up to the big man. I am not sure what it is but on offense i don't feel like we are taking full advantages of the mismatches we have. Again hate to complain after a win like that. I am hoping JRP and the play calling figured something out in that 2nd half.

If we didn't shat ourselves in that very winnable UL game this team would be 5-0 right now and i hate counting wins before they happen but Temple is pretty awful. Should pudding pop them good next week. Damn that UL game. Happy for the team though, true team win tonight. Well done boys, Go Knights!!!

Where they at?!?!

These just arrived at the bookstore and should be available online soon.

Playing our top competitor, Houston(13-2) at 8. 🏐

Rick on Full Ride on espn radio just said he heard SJ may get an interview for AD at Auburn.

Seems like giant leap. Rick throws out these odd rumors all the time. So I take zero worth to it.

I'm thinking 10-15K.

Thoughts?

Campy, and borderline stupid, but yet, I still enjoyed it. He really did a good “homage” to the tv show.

I'm sorry to have to post this ... but it's reached this point with a sub-1% of those regulars here that continue to do it. I've tried to 'roll with things' here. That includes insults of my career, my wife and other things (I wish you'd just keep it on me, but ... sigh ... some will 'go there'). Thumbs down me, insult me all you want, but keep on-the-board. Because, for the sub-1% of you ...

Do not take things on this board to the real world, especially when you're drunk or pissed because I 'took you on a tour of your history.' Do not **** with people's livelihoods -- and I'm no, I'm not the only one (KFS and others have 'felt it' too in the past). Do not cause issues for those outside the board! I've tried to leave and it still continues ... in fact, it only picks up when I leave the board!

I've 'tolerated' it the past decade, including someone calling my employer after the 2014 Fiesta Bowl when they were very likely drunk and pissed off (the infamous 'stubs' fiasco). But ... every time someone in the small, sub-1% of people (who I call 'The Cabal') 'get pissed' at me on-board as of late, especially when the butthurt is extreme on everything from Vaccines to Political Hypocrisy, they break the 'Social Contract.'

If it happens again ... I strike back. That's not a threat, but a guarantee. Obviously ignoring it the past decade isn't working. I'm turning 50 and I really don't care at this point. Make all the jokes you want, but ... I'm dead serious. My apologies to the >>99% of the board. We're all Knights and we should support one another, especially when we disagree the most ... because, it's just a game, it's just opinion.