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UCF’S Regular Season That Was Just That: Regular

We had some exciting moments for sure, but this season also felt very disjointed. We had players blaming second-half meltdowns on fans leaving, questionable two-point conversion calls to finish a Marcus Jordan flu game in Norman, and an absolute shellacking in Lawrence from a traditional basketball power. Way too much gold in our stands for a bounce-back game against West Virginia in the first Big 12 conference game between two teams in the Eastern Time Zone. An outlier magnum opus for our annual Space Game. What we thought to be automatic in Lubbock, turned out to be manual. The yips lingered another week too long as well. That’s what it’s felt like this year. No goldfish memory, good OR bad.

My latest as we head into bowl season ⤵️

6-7 and Gus and JRP still keep praising each other like they went undefeated

Enough of these 2 already. At the Press Conference, Q for Gus - What do you need to do to finish?.....A by Gus - You've got to finish...no shit sherlock. It's time this guy focuses on being the CEO and brings in an OC and DC who individually take responsibility for their side of the ball. Right now, no one is accountable on this coaching staff. As for JRP, "this is all I've ever wanted to do"...that's nice to know but as the QB, it's all about the team and winning right? Then why, when you're asked, is it always about JRP? Like I've been saying since the Baylor game, changes need to be made at the coaching/leadership level of the FB program. Alarm bells have been sounding for more than half the season. And like I wrote earlier in this post, enough of these 2. Coach up the team and prepare all the players to play a full 60 minutes every game. It's not about Gus and JRP (or their equivalents next year). It's about the UCF FB program for goodness sake. Bring in players and coaches who will focus on this team winning. If you want a great example of that look at Jason Johnson and follow his lead. He plays hard every play, no time off. Give me 22 of him for starters.

Y2 Big 12 improvement and expectations

Despite an up and down year, I do not think the Program is far from contending. I know this can be hard to see for a chunk of UCF fans but with Baker, Harvey back in addition to the best recruiting class in program history what should be a busy transfer portal process there is no reason for UCF to not be in the 9-10 win range next year.

The first issue I see being fixed is depth, I believe the combination of transfer portal, incoming class as well this years experienced players will fix that immediately.

I do like Malzhan, but he absolutely needs an offensive coordinator who will take over play calling and keep it away from the head coach. Addison Williams will progress to become a good coordinator, just not sure if UCF fans and even the administration will be patient with him. I would like to see UCF possibly make a move here. Everything else should be in place. With Baker and Harvey I do believe UCF will be forced to find a portal solution for signal caller, I don't think growing pains will be something this staff would be willing to take on

Merry Christmas!

As on old G posting here for over 20+ years, Merry Christmas to my fellow Knights fans that have been here for a long time and all of the new rookies. I know we all disagree on many topics, but the bottom line we love our Knights. Happy holidays and we look forward to working harder and advancing our awesome programs. I am excited on our future and the direction we're going.

Opinion thread: What we need to get better

I thought it would be interesting to hear from folks what we think we need to be better.
I’ll get my broad brush opinion out of the way

BIAS:

- I think our offensive scheme is great, but at times we fail to adjust playcalling and/or players don’t execute together.

- For the most part and most games I felt our defense was the core issue. I am actually surprised we were bowl eligible with how our defense played.

- While I believe playcalling matters, fundamentals and talent have a bigger impact.
11 5-star guys are going to beat 11 3-star guys running sweep left and dive plays. You get it.

OPPORTUNITIES:

- It would be interesting to hear from others on what we think was wrong with our defense. I have to agree against Georgia tech they seemed to get to the second level a lot. My memory may not be great here, but it seemed like our defense regressed starting second half of TWILL and it’s been sliding ever since. Our DLine seemed so hot and cold. Was it that we didn’t see good penetration by linebackers? Did we ever stack the box. OJT by Addison?

- Intermediate passing game. Tight Ends. Here is where I do think recruiting will make a difference. Our tight end room isn’t that intriguing. We need 3 or 4 really good recruits here and one dominant player. It just seemed to me that JRP struggled to dump the ball over the middle. Is this by design?

- Oline didn’t play bad this year but I do think we will see this position improve with raw talent. This may be enough to put us over the edge on some games.

- Linebacker. We have all said it. Jason Johnson makes a lot of plays, but how much does this position affect both secondary and dline. It just seems like we didn’t have true dawgs here. Imagine having just one second team or first team all conference player here.

Special teams. Coverage good. Kicking- wtf boomer.

Consistency and gameday management. There were some questionable calls and decisions this year. I don’t think there are as bad as some say, but still too many.

WRAPUP

I know this has been a tough year and I think there are some good reasons to be frustrated.
I’m optimistic even as I look at talent alone.
There weren’t many games where we were completely out of it and talent improvement across all positions will have a multiplier / compounding effect.

I would like to see Gus address the lack of creativity and capability on defense as well as lack of using the middle of the field in the passing game. We need better quick options for our quarterback. Some of that might just mean we weren’t that strong in the middle of the field. O’Leary used to talk about that and it does make playcalling harder.

What do you agree with, disagree with..

Javon Baker's Draft Grade

Want to get everyone's thoughts on where Javon Baker would have been drafted had he left UCF this year and where he'll end up going in the 2025 draft now that he's staying.

I posted the following tweet after that first quarter TD and stated that I thought he'd be a day 2 pick in 2025. For those who don't know, that's a 2nd or 3rd round pick.

Javon and people close to him replied that he was already that as of this year and he'll be a first round pick in 2025.

If you are graded as a 2nd or 3rd round pick, why are you coming back to UCF? Especially with the uncertainty at QB?

I had him as a late 5th round guy at best following this year.

Thoughts?

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