The inaugural Josh Heupel event was held on the floor of the Venue (current volleyball court, old UCF Arena). I arrived around 5:30 and spotted Heupel and the coaching staff walking in around that time. All the seating was pushed up into the wall, the lights were dimmed and a strobe light was in operation in conjunction with modern music. Given the gym setting, it had a definite middle-school dance vibe.
The perimeter areas had a variety of finger foods, including meatballs, sesame chicken and beef empanadas. There was a cash bar available.
Plenty of seating, including large round tables.
For Frost's two signing day events, the locale was the Fairwinds Alumni Center. While that facility had a more upscale feel, the room used wasn't very good. It was narrow and long with minimal seating.
Right off the bat, I noticed Josh Heupel working the room. He approached fans, drumming up conversations and posing for photos. His personality was in stark contrast to Frost, who really didn't enjoy that aspect of the job.
I saw Glen Elarbee and Jeff Lebby chatting it up with fans also. It was quite dark in there, so I might have missed other conversations happening.
Right on the dot at 6 p.m., Marc Daniels began the program. He was promoting the upcoming WBB game vs. UConn, which was to tip off at 7 p.m. next door.
After a couple minutes, Danny White came up on stage to address the crowd. He spoke about the opportunity for the athletic department to "take a huge step forward" because of the student-athletes. "We're such a young athletic department with so much upside. We're the fastest-growing university in the fastest-growing city in America. I'm going to tell that story at every opportunity and the sky is the limit for how high we can go."
Danny adds that it's "inevitable" UCF will become a top 25 athletic department because of the market, weather, recruiting base. Even top 10. "What can we do now to speed that up? Those are the things we're working on on a daily basis?"
He said his two years at UCF has been like "cup of coffee," then recognized Dr. Hitt and his wife Martha for the 26 years he's been at UCF, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd.
It was also signing day for men's and women's soccer, so Danny recognized those head coaches and gave a brief recap of the soccer seasons.
Danny also wanted to recognize the Excellence Club members. The goal was $7.5 million which would give them $1.5M/year in recurring revenue to supplement the football program.
They're currently at $6.1M pledged. A chart was shown with the levels of commitments. Not shown on the graph was 646 gifts underneath $5,000 which also went to the Fund.
Back of the room cell phone zoom quality, but here is the graph:
Danny also revealed the season ticket sales numbers, which I posted about last night. He tweeted the graphic earlier today:
"If they don't act now, at some point pretty soon there's not going to be an opportunity to get in the stadium. I want our diehard and core fans that are most passionate about UCF football to be our season ticket holders, not ticket scalpers."
That segued into Danny introducing Josh Heupel. He spoke a bit about the hiring process in December.
"We had our pick of coaches across the country. Everybody wanted the job. This is such an attractive place to be. After the interview, it became obvious to all of us that we found not only an elite, exceptional coach that has orchestrated some of the best offensive efforts over the last decade as an offensive coordinator, that was himself a national champion, runner-up for the Heisman and AP Player of the Year, and learned from as a player some of the best offensive minds in the country, but not just as a coach, a high-integrity person from everything we learned about him. And a great match for our team. That's what made the search more difficult. It wasn't like hitting the reset button. We had the highest-scoring offense in the country and we run a certain style of football, so we needed to marry those elements together. We got the best guy for our situation and the best guy in the country in terms of offense. He was Offensive Coordinator of the Year."
Up comes Heupel, who at that point ran the rest of the show himself.
He didn't begin with terrible slow-developing dad jokes like a certain former coach, but instead introduced himself and outlined his vision for the program.
"If you live in the coaching world, you understand the power the UCF brand has from coast to coast. It's powerful because of the six 10-win seasons in the last 10 years. It's powerful because of the three conference championships in the last five years. It's powerful because of the two New Year's Six bowl game wins in the last five years under multiple coaching staffs. That's what I knew about this place when I came here, but what I didn't know until I got in the interview process is the success on the field is being matched in the classroom. That's ultimately what this place is about."
That generated a round of applause. Heupel talked about the goal of molding and developing boys into responsible young men.
"This university is graduating student-athletes at a higher rate than any public institution in the United States of America. Student-athlete GPA is above 3.2 for 19 straight semesters, something that no other program in American can talk about. It's a humbling experience to be a part of that. It offers so much power when we go into a living room and sit in front of a mom and dad and say this is the college experience your son is going to have. It's a real powerful tool."
Heupel added that the transition "has gone extremely well," saying it was a unique situation having two coaching staffs on campus at the same time and unique in that they're taking over a 13-0 program, but his staff doesn't want it any other way.
"There's a bunch of great players on campus. We lost some great players that graduated, some guys that were leaders in our locker room, and some guys left early for the NFL Draft that will be drafted high, but the expectations you have will never surpassed by the expectations that we're going to hold ourselves to and the expectations that our players have.
"We're going to go out and have a fantastic 2018 season. It's going to be because of the development of our players which is taking place right now. A couple key areas that we've made changes in is our strength and conditioning program. We've added personnel there, so we can train our players position-specific. Offensive linemen will be trained different than defensive linemen. Wide receivers will be trained differently than linebackers. We're going to train our guys at each position to become the elite of elite.
"When we got here in December, a couple players were welcomed into my office. I wanted to get to know them on a personal basis. One of the things they mentioned thought needed to be improved was the nutrition side. I went down there and had breakfast and lunch with those guys, came back and talked to the administration and said, 'This is something we have to improve upon so our student-athletes can become their best and if we want to consistently have a championship-caliber program.' Our administration came back and made the changes and our players have never been happier. Their bodies are changing on a weekly basis. Our staff was gone for three weeks recruiting and they come back and the players dramatically look different. That's going to make us a better football program when we get on the field here in spring ball and then certainly when you guys see us in September."
From there, the focus shifted to the 19 members of the 2018 recruiting class. 13 signed in December and six on Wednesday. He mentioned several of the December guys being already on campus.
Heupel said these were three biggest focuses when he arrived:
1. Getting to know the current players on a personal basis, which was the most important. "You've got to recruit the players who are already here."
2. Recruiting the 2018 class.
3. Recruiting a great staff.
He said this staff has "high integrity, are highly competitive, are great teachers of the game and most importantly will develop great relationshps with our players and help them be successful outside of the game of football."
He said if the relationship is there, the players will play harder for you and take coaching.
As for this class, they had to focus on OL because of "graduating two left tackles" (I guess he's referring to Chavis Dickey in addition to Aaron Evans). Also said they had to focus on DL because they need to "create negative plays" by going after the quarterback and stopping the run game.
"Those are two key areas when you take over a program that you've got to put an emphasis on. The reason is those high school kids need a year to come in and develop in your strength and conditioning and then fundamentals and technique to be able to execute on the line of scrimmage. Skill kids sometimes can make a more immediate impact because of the position and the space they're playing in."
Next was the player-by-player video and commentary from the staff. First up was defensive coordinator Randy Shannon.
"It's been a wonderful time out recruiting. We did a tremendous job as a staff getting to know the guys we're bringing in this season. The student-athletes we signed are tremendous guys, tremendous people, very smart and come from winning programs that know how to win championships. One thing Coach Heup and I always talk about, is bringing players who know how to win with a winning attitude on and off the field and doing the right things."
Commentary in conjunction with highlight videos being shown.
LB Eriq Gilyard - "Early enrollee. Great linebacker. Tremendous upside. Really poweful young man. We're going to look at him at the inside linebacker position. Very physical young man. Next play here you see him inside. Creating tackles for loss. That's the biggest thing we're going to do this year on defense is making tackles for loss and creating negative plays."
LB Randy Charlton - "Another early enrollee. Won a championship at Southridge. Very powerful strong man. Very athletic. He's going to be very aggressive. Watch this right here. Here's him coming off the line, getting penetration and getting up field. Like we said, creating negative plays. That's what defense is all about. A guy like Randy and a couple other guys, we can create a lot of sacks and turnovers building off what we did last year. We were second at UCF in turnovers last year. Tremendous job of creating turnovers and field position for the offense.
LB Demetreius Mayes - "Another young man that won a state championship at Northwestern. We don't know where we're going to use him at, but great hands off the edge, can get off blocks. We don't know if we're going to play him at outside linebacker or inside linebacker. We recruited an athlete at this position right here. Tremendous ball skills. A guy who can make a lot of plays. The biggest thing we always try to do on offense is score. No matter what happens, create turnovers and score points. This young man does a lot of things for us on defense."
Charlton and Mayes were listed as DEs in UCF's initial release, but they were introduced as future linebackers.
With Heupel back on the mic, he talks about Florida being the best in the country for recruiting.
"You can get in your car and go scoop up players that will allow you to chase a championship. There's only a handful of places like that in America. Our recruiting philosophy is to own our state. That's why all 10 assistant coaches are in the state of Florida. They all have an area. Our first day out on the road in January as a full staff, we hit the Orlando metro area and every school was hit because we want them to know that this is our hometown. This is their hometown team. This is where they need to play. A week later, we were in Tampa/St. Pete hitting every school. The reason is we want them to understand let's make the trek over on the interstate and come play for a championship football team."
Heupel spoke of the recruiting prowess of Randy Shannon in particular with his elite connections.
Next coach to be introduced was defensive line coach Shane Burnham, who recruits the Tampa Bay area. He spoke of his excitement to return to the state of Florida.
DT Ike Walker - "Ike is not a tiny guy as you can see. 6-4, 350. He's going to be dominant at the point of attack. He's knocking guys back, getting separation but also athletic enough to make plays and run the field. Ike played both ways so he's a guy that never left the field. I think if you can find a big fella that plays hard like he does, after playing 140 snaps on a Friday night, you've got a guy that you can work with. Some of the coaches on our staff had him in camp last summer and are really excited about what he can do for us inside. Big space eater with good feet."
DE Davonchae Bryant - "6-6 defensive end that's new to the game. Started playing football his junior year. He's got a ton of upside. He's just growing into his frame. He's long, athletic. You can't get enough length nowadays when you're playing against these long offensive tackles. The ability to be long and grow into that frame as he gets in our weight program will do some great things for us coming off the edge. That's something we were looking for in this class, some edge rushers. Davonchae will give us that.
DE Landon Woodson - "I was aware of Landon at my previous stop and was recruiting him. I showed hi m to this staff and they liked what they saw. 6-5, 6-6, 220-pound player. As you can see, he can run. You'll see a very explosive first step as he comes off the ball. Primarily a tight end, wide receiver and defensive end from a team that lost in the state championship. Unusual story. He came off a knee injury that cost him most of his sophomore and junior seasons so was lightly recruited because of that. His recruitment started to heat up this fall. A guy that will grow into his frame and will be a 265-pound defensive end that can run and has got some strength. He's a 49-foot shot putter. This winter, his first time doing. So if you're talking a 6-6 guy the first time out throwing the shot 49 feet, there's some explosive strength there."
DT Tyrese Black - "Three state championships in a row so he knows nothing but winning. Another big guy on the inside, much like Ike. We have two inside guys and two outside guys in this class. I thought he played extremely hard. He's 290, but he's still a baby still. That 290 will go from looking like me to looking one of those strength coaches. A great program in a high classification up in Atlanta. Played some edge for those guys. You'll see the strength he plays with."
Next coach up was cornerbacks coach Corey Bell.
DB Dyllon Lester - "Three-time state champion, so just like UCF he's used to winning and that's why he's here. He's a see-ball, get-ball type of guy. Does a tremendous job of attacking the football and creating turnovers. Those are the things we look for in our secondary, being able to create turnovers and also guys that are difficult to throw against. As you can see, he's making plays on the football and creating turnovers. He's a turnover-machine type of kid. That's why he's here. We're excited about him."
DB Jermaine McMillian - "Mid-year kid, already enrolled. Played at a top program down in Miami, Booker T. Washington. Does a tremendous job because of his length, his athleticism and using what he has. We're looking forward to him being on the edge and doing the things he does best in terms of covering up guys, being difficult to throw against at all times. One thing about both of these guys is they're hybrid guys. We can move these guys around in the secondary, safety, nickel or corner. Both of these guys can do all that. It gives us a great opportunity to move guys around and put them in position of success."
Willie Martinez, safeties coach, was next up. He talked about how he's glad to be back in his home state and back at UCF.
DB Derek Gainous - "He's already on campus, mid-year guy. All these defensive backs, Corey just spoke about two of them, is the thing that stands out is their athleticism. That's what we look for in the back end. Guys that can be game-changing kind of players and you can see how much of a ball hawk he is. Last two years he's defended 20 passes, a combination of picks and pass breakups. They're dynamic. The other thing too Corey was mentioning is they can play every position. That's how we recruit in the back end. We don't recruit corners, we don't recruit safeties. We recruit guys that can play all positions in the back end. That gives us the versatility for matchups."
DB Trey Green - "This is one of our favorite plays here. He led the state in picks this year with nine. He had six his junior year which gives him 15. As a wide receiver, he had 1,000 yards his sophomore year. He's a returner. Literally a ball hawk, similar to Dyllon. Likes to finish, is prideful."
With Heupel back on the mic, he says the offense "will play faster" than what you've been accustomed to, drawing some gasps from the crowd. On defense, they'll be "disruptive and aggressive," and creating negative plays, turnovers and getting teams in third-and-long.
OL coach Glen Elarbee is the next coach presenting. Heupel explained how much of a role Elarbee played in the success of Missouri's offense.
OL Lamarius Benson - "He is an absolute-freaking man mover. When you see him in person, he's got arms that are like eight-feet long. He will grab ahold of you and put you where you don't want to be. If you have a son that plays football, the last thing you want is Lamarius Benson across from him. Got me? He is unreal. We're really fortunate that coach Heupel had a great relationship with his high school coach. He was committed to South Carolina. We got in and got him to take a visit. Our guys did an unbelievable job with him."
OL Josh McMullen - Coach Heup kind of mentioned it. We lost two tackles. We were like, man, what are we going to do? We were luck enough to get to East Central Community College in Mississippi and found Josh. We saw how athletic he was. He can move and really help us in pass protection and help us on the edge. He was committed to Colorado at the time. He cam down and our players did a great job with him. He felt like it was a family as soon as he stepped on campus."
OL Edward Collins - "You kind of get lucky at times. Ed was already committed. Watched his tape and said, man, this guy is pretty athletic. He's long. He's what we're looking for at tackle. Then you get on the road and walk into his high school and you're like, 'Ed! How're you doing, man!" The length this guy has. When you watch him on tape, you realize his body hasn't even gotten to where it's going to be. He's going to be a dominant force on the edge. He's so good he makes the film freeze (a joke about a temporary freeze on the video board)."
OL James Collins - "He's big and athletic and you walk into the room and see James and he is a mountain of a man. You give him a hug and your body gets swallowed by James. He had a great relationship with the previous staff and we were able to keep him. Excited for what he can do. Great length at tackle."
QB coach Jeff Lebby was up next.
OL Eric Seidelman - "Orlando kid from right here at Bishop Moore. We've got to keep kids here in Orlando and here's a great start to that. If you watch the first clip, Eric plays the game the way it's supposed to be played. He's a talented kid. He's got great toughness, great smarts and intangibles. He's a guy that's going to be incredibly proud to put on that UCF logo because he's from Orlando. We're excited about getting him over to campus. He's a guy that does everything right. Academically. He knows what to do. He's a smart guy. He'll do everything he's supposed to do every single day."
OL Trevor Elbert - "He's a junior college kid we got from California who is originally from Texas. He will be eager to get on the field. Trev is a guy that's 6-5, 315 pounds. We signed six offensive linemen and you can tell these guys love to play football. He's going to have a great impact for us. He's done a great job changing his body in the three weeks he's been on campus. He's a guy that's excited to be here and ready to play. He originally signed with Texas A&M out of high school. He had actually committed to Miami the week before us that we were able to flip to us the next week."
WR coach Darrell Wyatt was up next. He was the WR coach at Oklahoma when Heupel was a GA there.
WR Ke'von Ahmad - "We felt we got a difference maker. 6-foot guy, already 190 pounds. Legitimate 10.4 speed, a home-run guy for us. We think he's got a chance to make a difference. He's also a guy who spent some time in the State of Florida. He lived briefly in Jacksonville. Ke'von is a kid we feel like can make a difference for us. He checks all the boxes for what we want to do offensively. He'll take advantage of one-on-one matchups. We're excited about him. He's got power. When he catches the ball underneath defenders, he can run through defenders. Tremendous upside."
TE coach Jon Cooper was next.
TE Chris Deloach - "He's already here and working hard, doing a great job. You've heard a lot about girth and beefy guys, big human being. He does a great job in the run game. He's a vertical passing threat. He creates mismatches. That's what we look for at tight end. He's not afraid to get down and dirty. When you watch him in the passing game, he creates mismatches with his big body. He can move for a big, long, thick freaky-looking guy. He does such a great job at both, getting in space and getting physical."
With the recruit presentations concluded, Heupel brought up special teams coach Nick Toth and running backs coach Anthony Tucker, who didn't have anybody to talk about.
Heupel also mentioned the two transfers, WR Tre Nixon and TE Jonathan MacCollister.
In wrapping things up, Heupel believes they will start strong in recruiting the 2019 class.
The program concluded around 6:45 without the opportunity for fan questions, likely as not to interfere with the women's basketball game vs. UConn.
The perimeter areas had a variety of finger foods, including meatballs, sesame chicken and beef empanadas. There was a cash bar available.
Plenty of seating, including large round tables.
For Frost's two signing day events, the locale was the Fairwinds Alumni Center. While that facility had a more upscale feel, the room used wasn't very good. It was narrow and long with minimal seating.
Right off the bat, I noticed Josh Heupel working the room. He approached fans, drumming up conversations and posing for photos. His personality was in stark contrast to Frost, who really didn't enjoy that aspect of the job.
I saw Glen Elarbee and Jeff Lebby chatting it up with fans also. It was quite dark in there, so I might have missed other conversations happening.
Right on the dot at 6 p.m., Marc Daniels began the program. He was promoting the upcoming WBB game vs. UConn, which was to tip off at 7 p.m. next door.
After a couple minutes, Danny White came up on stage to address the crowd. He spoke about the opportunity for the athletic department to "take a huge step forward" because of the student-athletes. "We're such a young athletic department with so much upside. We're the fastest-growing university in the fastest-growing city in America. I'm going to tell that story at every opportunity and the sky is the limit for how high we can go."
Danny adds that it's "inevitable" UCF will become a top 25 athletic department because of the market, weather, recruiting base. Even top 10. "What can we do now to speed that up? Those are the things we're working on on a daily basis?"
He said his two years at UCF has been like "cup of coffee," then recognized Dr. Hitt and his wife Martha for the 26 years he's been at UCF, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd.
It was also signing day for men's and women's soccer, so Danny recognized those head coaches and gave a brief recap of the soccer seasons.
Danny also wanted to recognize the Excellence Club members. The goal was $7.5 million which would give them $1.5M/year in recurring revenue to supplement the football program.
They're currently at $6.1M pledged. A chart was shown with the levels of commitments. Not shown on the graph was 646 gifts underneath $5,000 which also went to the Fund.
Back of the room cell phone zoom quality, but here is the graph:
Danny also revealed the season ticket sales numbers, which I posted about last night. He tweeted the graphic earlier today:
"If they don't act now, at some point pretty soon there's not going to be an opportunity to get in the stadium. I want our diehard and core fans that are most passionate about UCF football to be our season ticket holders, not ticket scalpers."
That segued into Danny introducing Josh Heupel. He spoke a bit about the hiring process in December.
"We had our pick of coaches across the country. Everybody wanted the job. This is such an attractive place to be. After the interview, it became obvious to all of us that we found not only an elite, exceptional coach that has orchestrated some of the best offensive efforts over the last decade as an offensive coordinator, that was himself a national champion, runner-up for the Heisman and AP Player of the Year, and learned from as a player some of the best offensive minds in the country, but not just as a coach, a high-integrity person from everything we learned about him. And a great match for our team. That's what made the search more difficult. It wasn't like hitting the reset button. We had the highest-scoring offense in the country and we run a certain style of football, so we needed to marry those elements together. We got the best guy for our situation and the best guy in the country in terms of offense. He was Offensive Coordinator of the Year."
Up comes Heupel, who at that point ran the rest of the show himself.
He didn't begin with terrible slow-developing dad jokes like a certain former coach, but instead introduced himself and outlined his vision for the program.
"If you live in the coaching world, you understand the power the UCF brand has from coast to coast. It's powerful because of the six 10-win seasons in the last 10 years. It's powerful because of the three conference championships in the last five years. It's powerful because of the two New Year's Six bowl game wins in the last five years under multiple coaching staffs. That's what I knew about this place when I came here, but what I didn't know until I got in the interview process is the success on the field is being matched in the classroom. That's ultimately what this place is about."
That generated a round of applause. Heupel talked about the goal of molding and developing boys into responsible young men.
"This university is graduating student-athletes at a higher rate than any public institution in the United States of America. Student-athlete GPA is above 3.2 for 19 straight semesters, something that no other program in American can talk about. It's a humbling experience to be a part of that. It offers so much power when we go into a living room and sit in front of a mom and dad and say this is the college experience your son is going to have. It's a real powerful tool."
Heupel added that the transition "has gone extremely well," saying it was a unique situation having two coaching staffs on campus at the same time and unique in that they're taking over a 13-0 program, but his staff doesn't want it any other way.
"There's a bunch of great players on campus. We lost some great players that graduated, some guys that were leaders in our locker room, and some guys left early for the NFL Draft that will be drafted high, but the expectations you have will never surpassed by the expectations that we're going to hold ourselves to and the expectations that our players have.
"We're going to go out and have a fantastic 2018 season. It's going to be because of the development of our players which is taking place right now. A couple key areas that we've made changes in is our strength and conditioning program. We've added personnel there, so we can train our players position-specific. Offensive linemen will be trained different than defensive linemen. Wide receivers will be trained differently than linebackers. We're going to train our guys at each position to become the elite of elite.
"When we got here in December, a couple players were welcomed into my office. I wanted to get to know them on a personal basis. One of the things they mentioned thought needed to be improved was the nutrition side. I went down there and had breakfast and lunch with those guys, came back and talked to the administration and said, 'This is something we have to improve upon so our student-athletes can become their best and if we want to consistently have a championship-caliber program.' Our administration came back and made the changes and our players have never been happier. Their bodies are changing on a weekly basis. Our staff was gone for three weeks recruiting and they come back and the players dramatically look different. That's going to make us a better football program when we get on the field here in spring ball and then certainly when you guys see us in September."
From there, the focus shifted to the 19 members of the 2018 recruiting class. 13 signed in December and six on Wednesday. He mentioned several of the December guys being already on campus.
Heupel said these were three biggest focuses when he arrived:
1. Getting to know the current players on a personal basis, which was the most important. "You've got to recruit the players who are already here."
2. Recruiting the 2018 class.
3. Recruiting a great staff.
He said this staff has "high integrity, are highly competitive, are great teachers of the game and most importantly will develop great relationshps with our players and help them be successful outside of the game of football."
He said if the relationship is there, the players will play harder for you and take coaching.
As for this class, they had to focus on OL because of "graduating two left tackles" (I guess he's referring to Chavis Dickey in addition to Aaron Evans). Also said they had to focus on DL because they need to "create negative plays" by going after the quarterback and stopping the run game.
"Those are two key areas when you take over a program that you've got to put an emphasis on. The reason is those high school kids need a year to come in and develop in your strength and conditioning and then fundamentals and technique to be able to execute on the line of scrimmage. Skill kids sometimes can make a more immediate impact because of the position and the space they're playing in."
Next was the player-by-player video and commentary from the staff. First up was defensive coordinator Randy Shannon.
"It's been a wonderful time out recruiting. We did a tremendous job as a staff getting to know the guys we're bringing in this season. The student-athletes we signed are tremendous guys, tremendous people, very smart and come from winning programs that know how to win championships. One thing Coach Heup and I always talk about, is bringing players who know how to win with a winning attitude on and off the field and doing the right things."
Commentary in conjunction with highlight videos being shown.
LB Eriq Gilyard - "Early enrollee. Great linebacker. Tremendous upside. Really poweful young man. We're going to look at him at the inside linebacker position. Very physical young man. Next play here you see him inside. Creating tackles for loss. That's the biggest thing we're going to do this year on defense is making tackles for loss and creating negative plays."
LB Randy Charlton - "Another early enrollee. Won a championship at Southridge. Very powerful strong man. Very athletic. He's going to be very aggressive. Watch this right here. Here's him coming off the line, getting penetration and getting up field. Like we said, creating negative plays. That's what defense is all about. A guy like Randy and a couple other guys, we can create a lot of sacks and turnovers building off what we did last year. We were second at UCF in turnovers last year. Tremendous job of creating turnovers and field position for the offense.
LB Demetreius Mayes - "Another young man that won a state championship at Northwestern. We don't know where we're going to use him at, but great hands off the edge, can get off blocks. We don't know if we're going to play him at outside linebacker or inside linebacker. We recruited an athlete at this position right here. Tremendous ball skills. A guy who can make a lot of plays. The biggest thing we always try to do on offense is score. No matter what happens, create turnovers and score points. This young man does a lot of things for us on defense."
Charlton and Mayes were listed as DEs in UCF's initial release, but they were introduced as future linebackers.
With Heupel back on the mic, he talks about Florida being the best in the country for recruiting.
"You can get in your car and go scoop up players that will allow you to chase a championship. There's only a handful of places like that in America. Our recruiting philosophy is to own our state. That's why all 10 assistant coaches are in the state of Florida. They all have an area. Our first day out on the road in January as a full staff, we hit the Orlando metro area and every school was hit because we want them to know that this is our hometown. This is their hometown team. This is where they need to play. A week later, we were in Tampa/St. Pete hitting every school. The reason is we want them to understand let's make the trek over on the interstate and come play for a championship football team."
Heupel spoke of the recruiting prowess of Randy Shannon in particular with his elite connections.
Next coach to be introduced was defensive line coach Shane Burnham, who recruits the Tampa Bay area. He spoke of his excitement to return to the state of Florida.
DT Ike Walker - "Ike is not a tiny guy as you can see. 6-4, 350. He's going to be dominant at the point of attack. He's knocking guys back, getting separation but also athletic enough to make plays and run the field. Ike played both ways so he's a guy that never left the field. I think if you can find a big fella that plays hard like he does, after playing 140 snaps on a Friday night, you've got a guy that you can work with. Some of the coaches on our staff had him in camp last summer and are really excited about what he can do for us inside. Big space eater with good feet."
DE Davonchae Bryant - "6-6 defensive end that's new to the game. Started playing football his junior year. He's got a ton of upside. He's just growing into his frame. He's long, athletic. You can't get enough length nowadays when you're playing against these long offensive tackles. The ability to be long and grow into that frame as he gets in our weight program will do some great things for us coming off the edge. That's something we were looking for in this class, some edge rushers. Davonchae will give us that.
DE Landon Woodson - "I was aware of Landon at my previous stop and was recruiting him. I showed hi m to this staff and they liked what they saw. 6-5, 6-6, 220-pound player. As you can see, he can run. You'll see a very explosive first step as he comes off the ball. Primarily a tight end, wide receiver and defensive end from a team that lost in the state championship. Unusual story. He came off a knee injury that cost him most of his sophomore and junior seasons so was lightly recruited because of that. His recruitment started to heat up this fall. A guy that will grow into his frame and will be a 265-pound defensive end that can run and has got some strength. He's a 49-foot shot putter. This winter, his first time doing. So if you're talking a 6-6 guy the first time out throwing the shot 49 feet, there's some explosive strength there."
DT Tyrese Black - "Three state championships in a row so he knows nothing but winning. Another big guy on the inside, much like Ike. We have two inside guys and two outside guys in this class. I thought he played extremely hard. He's 290, but he's still a baby still. That 290 will go from looking like me to looking one of those strength coaches. A great program in a high classification up in Atlanta. Played some edge for those guys. You'll see the strength he plays with."
Next coach up was cornerbacks coach Corey Bell.
DB Dyllon Lester - "Three-time state champion, so just like UCF he's used to winning and that's why he's here. He's a see-ball, get-ball type of guy. Does a tremendous job of attacking the football and creating turnovers. Those are the things we look for in our secondary, being able to create turnovers and also guys that are difficult to throw against. As you can see, he's making plays on the football and creating turnovers. He's a turnover-machine type of kid. That's why he's here. We're excited about him."
DB Jermaine McMillian - "Mid-year kid, already enrolled. Played at a top program down in Miami, Booker T. Washington. Does a tremendous job because of his length, his athleticism and using what he has. We're looking forward to him being on the edge and doing the things he does best in terms of covering up guys, being difficult to throw against at all times. One thing about both of these guys is they're hybrid guys. We can move these guys around in the secondary, safety, nickel or corner. Both of these guys can do all that. It gives us a great opportunity to move guys around and put them in position of success."
Willie Martinez, safeties coach, was next up. He talked about how he's glad to be back in his home state and back at UCF.
DB Derek Gainous - "He's already on campus, mid-year guy. All these defensive backs, Corey just spoke about two of them, is the thing that stands out is their athleticism. That's what we look for in the back end. Guys that can be game-changing kind of players and you can see how much of a ball hawk he is. Last two years he's defended 20 passes, a combination of picks and pass breakups. They're dynamic. The other thing too Corey was mentioning is they can play every position. That's how we recruit in the back end. We don't recruit corners, we don't recruit safeties. We recruit guys that can play all positions in the back end. That gives us the versatility for matchups."
DB Trey Green - "This is one of our favorite plays here. He led the state in picks this year with nine. He had six his junior year which gives him 15. As a wide receiver, he had 1,000 yards his sophomore year. He's a returner. Literally a ball hawk, similar to Dyllon. Likes to finish, is prideful."
With Heupel back on the mic, he says the offense "will play faster" than what you've been accustomed to, drawing some gasps from the crowd. On defense, they'll be "disruptive and aggressive," and creating negative plays, turnovers and getting teams in third-and-long.
OL coach Glen Elarbee is the next coach presenting. Heupel explained how much of a role Elarbee played in the success of Missouri's offense.
OL Lamarius Benson - "He is an absolute-freaking man mover. When you see him in person, he's got arms that are like eight-feet long. He will grab ahold of you and put you where you don't want to be. If you have a son that plays football, the last thing you want is Lamarius Benson across from him. Got me? He is unreal. We're really fortunate that coach Heupel had a great relationship with his high school coach. He was committed to South Carolina. We got in and got him to take a visit. Our guys did an unbelievable job with him."
OL Josh McMullen - Coach Heup kind of mentioned it. We lost two tackles. We were like, man, what are we going to do? We were luck enough to get to East Central Community College in Mississippi and found Josh. We saw how athletic he was. He can move and really help us in pass protection and help us on the edge. He was committed to Colorado at the time. He cam down and our players did a great job with him. He felt like it was a family as soon as he stepped on campus."
OL Edward Collins - "You kind of get lucky at times. Ed was already committed. Watched his tape and said, man, this guy is pretty athletic. He's long. He's what we're looking for at tackle. Then you get on the road and walk into his high school and you're like, 'Ed! How're you doing, man!" The length this guy has. When you watch him on tape, you realize his body hasn't even gotten to where it's going to be. He's going to be a dominant force on the edge. He's so good he makes the film freeze (a joke about a temporary freeze on the video board)."
OL James Collins - "He's big and athletic and you walk into the room and see James and he is a mountain of a man. You give him a hug and your body gets swallowed by James. He had a great relationship with the previous staff and we were able to keep him. Excited for what he can do. Great length at tackle."
QB coach Jeff Lebby was up next.
OL Eric Seidelman - "Orlando kid from right here at Bishop Moore. We've got to keep kids here in Orlando and here's a great start to that. If you watch the first clip, Eric plays the game the way it's supposed to be played. He's a talented kid. He's got great toughness, great smarts and intangibles. He's a guy that's going to be incredibly proud to put on that UCF logo because he's from Orlando. We're excited about getting him over to campus. He's a guy that does everything right. Academically. He knows what to do. He's a smart guy. He'll do everything he's supposed to do every single day."
OL Trevor Elbert - "He's a junior college kid we got from California who is originally from Texas. He will be eager to get on the field. Trev is a guy that's 6-5, 315 pounds. We signed six offensive linemen and you can tell these guys love to play football. He's going to have a great impact for us. He's done a great job changing his body in the three weeks he's been on campus. He's a guy that's excited to be here and ready to play. He originally signed with Texas A&M out of high school. He had actually committed to Miami the week before us that we were able to flip to us the next week."
WR coach Darrell Wyatt was up next. He was the WR coach at Oklahoma when Heupel was a GA there.
WR Ke'von Ahmad - "We felt we got a difference maker. 6-foot guy, already 190 pounds. Legitimate 10.4 speed, a home-run guy for us. We think he's got a chance to make a difference. He's also a guy who spent some time in the State of Florida. He lived briefly in Jacksonville. Ke'von is a kid we feel like can make a difference for us. He checks all the boxes for what we want to do offensively. He'll take advantage of one-on-one matchups. We're excited about him. He's got power. When he catches the ball underneath defenders, he can run through defenders. Tremendous upside."
TE coach Jon Cooper was next.
TE Chris Deloach - "He's already here and working hard, doing a great job. You've heard a lot about girth and beefy guys, big human being. He does a great job in the run game. He's a vertical passing threat. He creates mismatches. That's what we look for at tight end. He's not afraid to get down and dirty. When you watch him in the passing game, he creates mismatches with his big body. He can move for a big, long, thick freaky-looking guy. He does such a great job at both, getting in space and getting physical."
With the recruit presentations concluded, Heupel brought up special teams coach Nick Toth and running backs coach Anthony Tucker, who didn't have anybody to talk about.
Heupel also mentioned the two transfers, WR Tre Nixon and TE Jonathan MacCollister.
In wrapping things up, Heupel believes they will start strong in recruiting the 2019 class.
The program concluded around 6:45 without the opportunity for fan questions, likely as not to interfere with the women's basketball game vs. UConn.
