Following Sunday's regular team meeting with the coaches, H-Back Cedric Thompson and two of his fellow seniors, defensive end Thomas Niles and linebacker Domenic Spencer, closed the door. The players - minus coaches and staff - had a "heart-to-heart" talk.
"We discussed the importance of bringing our team together," Thompson said. "Some things they needed to hear from a players' perspective and not a coaches' perspective. So we did that after our team meeting. We talked to the team heart-to-heart, kind of a private thing. We wanted to make sure everybody realizes the importance of winning here and what it takes to win here."
He said the morale is a little down, but optimism remains for a turnaround.
"I feel like the confidence of the team is not the best that it's been, but we aren't down in the dumps either because we know a lot of the things that are happening to us are our own doing," Thompson said. "It's going to take for us to practice hard and really focus to turn it all around."
Nobody ever envisioned UCF would begin the season with an 0-3 record and certainly not with a loss to an FCS team. The good news though is there's still time to rebound for the American Athletic Conference schedule, which begins Oct. 3 at Tulane.
"One of our positive thoughts is that we're still undefeated in conference play," Thompson said. "At the end of the season, that's our goal, to win conference. It is disappointing to lose games, period. Mo matter it's a conference or non-conference game because we want to win all our games. But we know we haven't played any conference games yet and we can still accomplish our goals."
Thompson was honored with this week's special teams "Hammer Award" for his forced fumble against Furman. On the kickoff following UCF's touchdown, Thompson stripped the ball on the initial hit, allowing Brendin Straubel to jump on it. The field position enabled UCF to kick a field goal and go up 10-0.
"It is kind of hard to celebrate individual awards," Thompson said. "As a leader, you want your team to be winning. That's really the goal that I seek going into every game. It is an honor to win the hammer, but at the same time you want to win games. I see the big picture."
Thompson called UCF's injury luck "ridiculous." The latest blow is the loss of wide receiver and return specialist Jordan Akins, who tore his ACL in the first play of the game, the opening kickoff, against Furman.
"It's not just anybody getting injured, it's our main guys," Thompson said. "It's definitely tough. At the end of the day, we still have to play. We can't just say okay everybody go easy on us because we have some of our main guys hurt. That's our team's job to put other players in the right position to back up the positions that are hurt. Those guys just have to step up and make plays.
"It's very hard to replace experience, especially with youth. We just have to continue to put our faith in our guys. We don't have any other options. We have to be positive and make sure we're preparing well and doing things we need to do to move forward because we can't keep looking back and saying what if, what if, what if. We have to live in the now, in the present and try to get it done with what we have."
Thompson is one of the players closest with quarterback Justin Holman, who has been nursing a finger injury since the Stanford game. George O'Leary is hopeful he could return in another week.
"It's been really tough on (Holman), but he's been doing a good job as a leader even though he's not playing by encouraging us in the film room and also chiming in on the practice field like he did today," Thompson said. "Just giving his piece of mind on the situation, giving his thoughts on different reads for the quarterbacks. He's not being selfish about it. He's helping out the guys that need assistance and he's helping us continue to move forward."
