Gus Malzahn was officially hired and introduced last Monday. Nine days later, his staff is complete.
On-field coaches:
Co-OC/QB: GJ Kinne
Co-OC/RB: Tim Harris Jr.
OL: Herb Hand
WR: Darrell Wyatt
ST/TE: Brian Blackmon
DC/ILB: Travis Williams
Co-DC/DBs: David Gibbs
CB: Addison Williams
Defensive Asst. (DL or DT?): Kenny Martin
Defensive Asst. (DE or OLB?): Kenny Ingram
Staff:
Director of Football Ops: SJ Tuohy
Strength Coach: Chris Dawson
Director of Player Personnel (recruiting): Devin Ducote
Link to Coach bios at UCFKnights.com
There may be a few more names to come, including quality control coaches (or analysts). Former Auburn linebacker Tre Williams, who had been coaching in high school, will be a defensive graduate assistant.
A few thoughts, now that we can look at the staff in totality:
The expectation, from me anyway, is this should be the best recruiting staff in UCF history. For starters, UCF has a head coach that embraces recruiting and understands what it takes to be successful in that area.
Personality, and a knack for communicating with young people, is more important than ever. I think that maybe was an issue in this past recruiting class when all of a sudden everybody had to recruit over Zoom and you no longer had the luxury of visits and the campus selling itself.
We'll learn more about these coaches as time progresses, but Travis Williams and Tim Harris Jr. are widely recognized as top-notch recruiters. T-Will was regarded as the best recruiter under Gus at Auburn, and one of the best in the nation. Harris Jr. is a former coach at Miami Booker T. Washington and has tremendous contacts in talent-rich South Florida.
Missouri people thought the world of David Gibbs as a recruiter and he was their go-to guy for Texas recruiting and DB recruits.
Brian Blackmon was considered one of the best high school coaches in Alabama before shifting to college (first at Auburn as an analyst, then Troy for three years).
Kenny Ingram rose through the ranks as a high school coach in Memphis and has been described through the years as a "dynamic recruiter."
Kenny Martin is from the Orlando area and already has a lot of connections to local high school coaches.
Auburn people think incredibly highly of Addison Williams, and believe he'll be a great recruiter too.
***
We've tracked about 35 offers since Gus took the job. A good amount of those going to Alabama players, which shouldn't be a surprise because of where Gus just came from. I am attempting to catalog all the offers in this linked thread, which is also pinned at the top of the Dungeon.
Obviously, Gus is aiming high with some of these early offers. As I've posted before, recruiting success for UCF should be more along the lines of winning more battles against the middle-tier P5 schools that regularly pluck players from Florida. Fill out your class by winning more of those battles, then maybe you'll be in a spot to land a couple of the big fish at the end. If not now, maybe a year later in the transfer portal.
While there is validity to some of the "stars don't matter" arguments (I've practiced that myself, just looking at some of the best players in UCF history being lightly recruited), I've felt UCF hasn't reached their full recruiting potential, at least in terms of what's realistically possible. In theory, the aftermath of the Peach Bowl season should have been a recruiting bonanza, but there was a coaching change and just an impossible setup for Josh Heupel in Dec. 2017. His first class (2018) also came in the first-year of the early signing period, limited time to hire a staff and host visits, etc. That's a rough class going back and looking at it now, just seeing how many players were booted from the team, NGE, etc.
Time will tell on the other classes, but 2019 looks solid. 2020, really too early to say. It's still a head scratcher that only five of UCF's 2021 signees are from Florida. There's nothing implicitly wrong with that... heck, some of UCF's best players came from 5,000 miles away (KZ, DG), but just surprising. I know the lack of Florida players raised a lot of eyebrows around UCF, and that was communicated to TMo when he embarked on his head coach hunt. I think that's also why Gus may have stressed the Florida/Georgia/Alabama/South Carolina recruiting focus in his introductory press conference, knowing how some important UCF people were dismayed over what they felt was a lack of recruiting effort by the previous staff to properly embrace the advantage being located in the middle of Florida.
***
While the NCAA dead period has been extended through May 31, there's optimism there will be some opening of allowable activities beginning June 1 in terms of visits, etc. Many players in the 2021 class committed early because the writing was on the wall that visits would never be allowed during their entire recruiting cycle, so I wonder if a lot of players in the upcoming 2022 class will try and wait until the summer when it's possible they could (gasp!) step foot on campuses again and have contact with coaches.
***
S/O to @HAPPYUCFKNIGHT for compiling this list in a previous thread.
2021 UCF Coach Salaries (Highest to Lowest):
DC Travis Williams - $600K
Co-DC/S David Gibbs - $450K
Co-OC/RB Tim Harris Jr. - $325K
Co-OC/QB GJ Kinne - $300K
OL Herb Hand - $300K
STC/TE Brian Blackmon - $275K
CB Addison Williams - $250K
WR Darrell Wyatt - $240K
Defensive Assistant Kenny Martin - $175K
Defensive Assistant Kenny Ingram - TBA
I have not yet received the salary terms for Kenny Ingram, whose hire was announced on Wednesday. Not including Ingram, UCF had $385K left their assistant coach budget. It's possible Gus was saving a little bit of that money to go towards analysts, etc.
***
I am expecting we will have another Gus press conference in the near future. I had heard that once the staff was finalized (which it is now), we'd hear from Gus again.
I know there have been some questions about future media access, etc. I don't know anything for certain, but I'm sure spring practice will follow the same COVID protocols as last fall, which means nobody is allowed near anything. I did see South Florida is allowing media to attend some outdoor practices (at least 15-20 minutes worth), but that's probably going to be the exception.
Spring practice dates? Don't know for sure yet. I believe they'll get started in mid-March. The spring game is tricky because UCF is having spring break from April 11-18. I'd imagine the players would have that week off (as traditionally always been the case) though this is an interesting year due to COVID, a new staff and the fact the majority of spring practice was cancelled last year. I'm thinking April 24 for a spring game. Just a guess.
I see no reason why UCF wouldn't have a spring game open to the public. If fans can attend football in the fall, and all the spring sports going on now, why not a spring football game? It's also two months from now, which also means two more months for vaccine distribution, hopefully lower nationwide COVID cases, etc.
In regards to the post-COVID era, hopefully beginning this upcoming preseason:
Most coaches these days are incredibly restrictive about practice access, so Frost and Heupel weren't alone in that regard. It was a stark contrast from the GOL days, when every spring practice was open to everyone as well as the first half of preseason camp. Under Heupel, media got access to a handful of practices here and there, usually for 15 minutes max, half of which was the team stretching. Yeah, I'd always go, but it was incredibly frustrating. Maybe the days of semi-open practices are gone forever, but GOL had a pretty good trust system in place with the media that did attend.
One thing that was always great about Frost and Heupel is there were there basically no interview restrictions, so you could talk to mostly any players you wanted to, and most assistant coaches. All of the Frost assistant coaches were friendly and open. Y'all know who the better Heupel assistant interviews were. The ones you didn't see in 2020 (because they refused to do Zoom interviews) were always the guys you could tell weren't comfortable talking or just didn't want to be bothered with it.
I know interview access was a lot more restrictive under Gus at Auburn as it was usually just Gus, coordinators and selected players, but hopefully that was because Auburn has a much larger media contingent and it needs to be more manageable.
Again, we'll see how it unfolds. If Press Conference Gus is a glimpse of the personality we'll see, I know fans will just be excited to hear a fresh voice that hopefully provides more substance and candor.
***
AD Terry Mohajir obviously had the Wednesday morning interview with Mike Bianchi and the thread about it - all about scheduling philosophy - has exploded to 10 pages and counting, but lost in all that is the fact TMo also had a Wednesday Zoom call with Shareholder Society members. Feedback from those on the call was extremely positive. Heard a lot of "TMo is a breath of fresh air," etc. People really appreciated his honesty and how upfront he was. He wasn't guarded, being intentionally vague, etc.
***
In that Bianchi interview, TMo said "we still need some games in 2022," that he's a "little nervous about it" and that he may have to do some things he doesn't usually do like to do, like "go on the road."
That's a little confusing to me because 2022, from what we know, is this:
Sept. 1 - at FIU
Sept. 10 - Louisville
Sept. 24 - Georgia Tech
With the two P5 games, I had heard Danny White had been in discussions with Florida Citrus Sports about possibly moving the Louisville game to the Citrus Bowl aka Camping World Stadium. With the leadership change, I'm not sure where that stands. But that schedule looks pretty complete to me, I would figure the the fourth spot would go to a random FCS team for a home game.
Unless something has changed for 2022 that we don't know about, the more concerning years are pretty much every year afterward. Those schedules are very empty.
Future UCF Football Schedules
On-field coaches:
Co-OC/QB: GJ Kinne
Co-OC/RB: Tim Harris Jr.
OL: Herb Hand
WR: Darrell Wyatt
ST/TE: Brian Blackmon
DC/ILB: Travis Williams
Co-DC/DBs: David Gibbs
CB: Addison Williams
Defensive Asst. (DL or DT?): Kenny Martin
Defensive Asst. (DE or OLB?): Kenny Ingram
Staff:
Director of Football Ops: SJ Tuohy
Strength Coach: Chris Dawson
Director of Player Personnel (recruiting): Devin Ducote
Link to Coach bios at UCFKnights.com
There may be a few more names to come, including quality control coaches (or analysts). Former Auburn linebacker Tre Williams, who had been coaching in high school, will be a defensive graduate assistant.
A few thoughts, now that we can look at the staff in totality:
The expectation, from me anyway, is this should be the best recruiting staff in UCF history. For starters, UCF has a head coach that embraces recruiting and understands what it takes to be successful in that area.
Personality, and a knack for communicating with young people, is more important than ever. I think that maybe was an issue in this past recruiting class when all of a sudden everybody had to recruit over Zoom and you no longer had the luxury of visits and the campus selling itself.
We'll learn more about these coaches as time progresses, but Travis Williams and Tim Harris Jr. are widely recognized as top-notch recruiters. T-Will was regarded as the best recruiter under Gus at Auburn, and one of the best in the nation. Harris Jr. is a former coach at Miami Booker T. Washington and has tremendous contacts in talent-rich South Florida.
Missouri people thought the world of David Gibbs as a recruiter and he was their go-to guy for Texas recruiting and DB recruits.
Brian Blackmon was considered one of the best high school coaches in Alabama before shifting to college (first at Auburn as an analyst, then Troy for three years).
Kenny Ingram rose through the ranks as a high school coach in Memphis and has been described through the years as a "dynamic recruiter."
Kenny Martin is from the Orlando area and already has a lot of connections to local high school coaches.
Auburn people think incredibly highly of Addison Williams, and believe he'll be a great recruiter too.
***
We've tracked about 35 offers since Gus took the job. A good amount of those going to Alabama players, which shouldn't be a surprise because of where Gus just came from. I am attempting to catalog all the offers in this linked thread, which is also pinned at the top of the Dungeon.
Obviously, Gus is aiming high with some of these early offers. As I've posted before, recruiting success for UCF should be more along the lines of winning more battles against the middle-tier P5 schools that regularly pluck players from Florida. Fill out your class by winning more of those battles, then maybe you'll be in a spot to land a couple of the big fish at the end. If not now, maybe a year later in the transfer portal.
While there is validity to some of the "stars don't matter" arguments (I've practiced that myself, just looking at some of the best players in UCF history being lightly recruited), I've felt UCF hasn't reached their full recruiting potential, at least in terms of what's realistically possible. In theory, the aftermath of the Peach Bowl season should have been a recruiting bonanza, but there was a coaching change and just an impossible setup for Josh Heupel in Dec. 2017. His first class (2018) also came in the first-year of the early signing period, limited time to hire a staff and host visits, etc. That's a rough class going back and looking at it now, just seeing how many players were booted from the team, NGE, etc.
Time will tell on the other classes, but 2019 looks solid. 2020, really too early to say. It's still a head scratcher that only five of UCF's 2021 signees are from Florida. There's nothing implicitly wrong with that... heck, some of UCF's best players came from 5,000 miles away (KZ, DG), but just surprising. I know the lack of Florida players raised a lot of eyebrows around UCF, and that was communicated to TMo when he embarked on his head coach hunt. I think that's also why Gus may have stressed the Florida/Georgia/Alabama/South Carolina recruiting focus in his introductory press conference, knowing how some important UCF people were dismayed over what they felt was a lack of recruiting effort by the previous staff to properly embrace the advantage being located in the middle of Florida.
***
While the NCAA dead period has been extended through May 31, there's optimism there will be some opening of allowable activities beginning June 1 in terms of visits, etc. Many players in the 2021 class committed early because the writing was on the wall that visits would never be allowed during their entire recruiting cycle, so I wonder if a lot of players in the upcoming 2022 class will try and wait until the summer when it's possible they could (gasp!) step foot on campuses again and have contact with coaches.
***
S/O to @HAPPYUCFKNIGHT for compiling this list in a previous thread.
2021 UCF Coach Salaries (Highest to Lowest):
DC Travis Williams - $600K
Co-DC/S David Gibbs - $450K
Co-OC/RB Tim Harris Jr. - $325K
Co-OC/QB GJ Kinne - $300K
OL Herb Hand - $300K
STC/TE Brian Blackmon - $275K
CB Addison Williams - $250K
WR Darrell Wyatt - $240K
Defensive Assistant Kenny Martin - $175K
Defensive Assistant Kenny Ingram - TBA
I have not yet received the salary terms for Kenny Ingram, whose hire was announced on Wednesday. Not including Ingram, UCF had $385K left their assistant coach budget. It's possible Gus was saving a little bit of that money to go towards analysts, etc.
***
I am expecting we will have another Gus press conference in the near future. I had heard that once the staff was finalized (which it is now), we'd hear from Gus again.
I know there have been some questions about future media access, etc. I don't know anything for certain, but I'm sure spring practice will follow the same COVID protocols as last fall, which means nobody is allowed near anything. I did see South Florida is allowing media to attend some outdoor practices (at least 15-20 minutes worth), but that's probably going to be the exception.
Spring practice dates? Don't know for sure yet. I believe they'll get started in mid-March. The spring game is tricky because UCF is having spring break from April 11-18. I'd imagine the players would have that week off (as traditionally always been the case) though this is an interesting year due to COVID, a new staff and the fact the majority of spring practice was cancelled last year. I'm thinking April 24 for a spring game. Just a guess.
I see no reason why UCF wouldn't have a spring game open to the public. If fans can attend football in the fall, and all the spring sports going on now, why not a spring football game? It's also two months from now, which also means two more months for vaccine distribution, hopefully lower nationwide COVID cases, etc.
In regards to the post-COVID era, hopefully beginning this upcoming preseason:
Most coaches these days are incredibly restrictive about practice access, so Frost and Heupel weren't alone in that regard. It was a stark contrast from the GOL days, when every spring practice was open to everyone as well as the first half of preseason camp. Under Heupel, media got access to a handful of practices here and there, usually for 15 minutes max, half of which was the team stretching. Yeah, I'd always go, but it was incredibly frustrating. Maybe the days of semi-open practices are gone forever, but GOL had a pretty good trust system in place with the media that did attend.
One thing that was always great about Frost and Heupel is there were there basically no interview restrictions, so you could talk to mostly any players you wanted to, and most assistant coaches. All of the Frost assistant coaches were friendly and open. Y'all know who the better Heupel assistant interviews were. The ones you didn't see in 2020 (because they refused to do Zoom interviews) were always the guys you could tell weren't comfortable talking or just didn't want to be bothered with it.
I know interview access was a lot more restrictive under Gus at Auburn as it was usually just Gus, coordinators and selected players, but hopefully that was because Auburn has a much larger media contingent and it needs to be more manageable.
Again, we'll see how it unfolds. If Press Conference Gus is a glimpse of the personality we'll see, I know fans will just be excited to hear a fresh voice that hopefully provides more substance and candor.
***
AD Terry Mohajir obviously had the Wednesday morning interview with Mike Bianchi and the thread about it - all about scheduling philosophy - has exploded to 10 pages and counting, but lost in all that is the fact TMo also had a Wednesday Zoom call with Shareholder Society members. Feedback from those on the call was extremely positive. Heard a lot of "TMo is a breath of fresh air," etc. People really appreciated his honesty and how upfront he was. He wasn't guarded, being intentionally vague, etc.
***
In that Bianchi interview, TMo said "we still need some games in 2022," that he's a "little nervous about it" and that he may have to do some things he doesn't usually do like to do, like "go on the road."
That's a little confusing to me because 2022, from what we know, is this:
Sept. 1 - at FIU
Sept. 10 - Louisville
Sept. 24 - Georgia Tech
With the two P5 games, I had heard Danny White had been in discussions with Florida Citrus Sports about possibly moving the Louisville game to the Citrus Bowl aka Camping World Stadium. With the leadership change, I'm not sure where that stands. But that schedule looks pretty complete to me, I would figure the the fourth spot would go to a random FCS team for a home game.
Unless something has changed for 2022 that we don't know about, the more concerning years are pretty much every year afterward. Those schedules are very empty.
Future UCF Football Schedules
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