Four months into the job, Terry Mohajir is still getting his feet wet as UCF's athletic director. He got a big task out of the way immediately in hiring football coach Gus Malzahn and now is tasked with the responsibility of continuing to elevate UCF's brand. He's got other priorities as well, including securing additional future football games and an emphasis to improve facilities.
Local media caught up with Mohajir at the recent Oviedo Charge On Tour where he talked about those topics and more.
Three months on campus, what are your impressions of this program?
"It's fantastic. This place is a sleeping giant. You guys have been around. You know it because you're close to it every single day. Nationally, we continue to emerge. We've got to get the people in California, New York, Michigan, Minnesota and the Midwest to all watch us. We have a plan to do that. We're excited. You know what? We'll continue to promote our great assets like we are. This thing will take ahold of itself."
What are the next steps on that plan?
"We're continuing to talk about our brand and the brand activation of what we're doing. Talking about how our national brand is continuing to emerge. I don't think people quite understand. People locally understand our story, but as we continue to talk about it we need the national narrative to start telling our story for us. We've got the people in place. We've got a national-brand coach. We've got some really good personnel. We've got national-brand basketball coach, women's basketball coach. Being aligned with the president, the university administration, the board of trustees, our athletic association board, if everybody's talking the same way and aligned, that's how you get the message across."
The announcement about the Boise State football opener moving to Thursday night. What does that do getting the brand out there?
"The start of college football. We are the opening day so to speak of college football. There might be a game earlier on Saturday. Thursday night lights, prime time Eastern, we are the opening of college football. You can't ask for that. We're asking our folks to buy the remaining tickets we have left. We have less than 2,500 to go to sell out and to rock that place, man. As Eminem says, lose yourself."
How exciting is 100 percent capacity? You haven't been inside the Bounce House yet.
"I think it's exactly what we want. I think Dr. Cartwright has also not experiencing the 100 percent because he got here about nine months before I got here. I know about UCF. It's one reason what I'm so fortunate to get this job. Excited to be here because I know what UCF it's about. The school, the fanbase, the city. I just think filling the Bounce House with not having any restrictions gets people more motivated and energized."
You have a lot of stuff coming up this summer, name, image and likeness is one of those.
"We're prepared. We have the portal in place. The processes in place to help our student-athletes to achieve that goal. However, what we don't know is there's a lot of gray with the NCAA right now. We're learning. We're prepared to do what we're allowed to do in the state of Florida and we'll do that. We're going to guide our students as much as we possibly can with the proper compliance. We're prepared. We just had a presentation for our head coaches yesterday. It went really well. We're continuing to learn. We'll adapt to the evolution of this."
You just signed FAU to a future home-and-home series? What do you like about that series, and are there more football series announcements on the horizon?
"I like a couple things about the series. No. 1 I like it because we needed a game. That was most important. When I got here we were still trying to fill '22. My previous place, we had '25 all filled. The fact they gave us a game and we were either going to have to play an FCS or play somebody. It works out well too because staying in the state, letting your fans in South Florida come watch you and fill the place down at FAU Stadium. It's huge. Even our fans here, it's two and a half hours from here. It's a really good game for us. We'll get them to come back in a few years. It's an exciting in-state game."
Are you looking for more games?
"Every single day. Yes, we're looking for more games. We need a lot of games. Yeah."
A few months since the hire of Gus Malzahn, you've seen the Gus effect in recruiting, the transfer portal and national recognition.
"Love seeing him work and his staff work. It's been a pleasure working with his entire staff. They're on it, man. Every single day. They've got their thumb on the pulse of our student-athletes, our recruits. What our players' needs are. The game plan. The X's and O's. The schematics. The facilities. We're right there. We're doing a little bit of renovation right now in the current football facility. It needed to be done. He's really excited about that to get ready for June 1 when the floodgates open and people can come back to campus."
When you say renovation, is that decoration?
"A little bit of everything. Painting, lights, carpet, graphics. Just freshening it up. It hasn't been freshened up for a while. We'll do other things. We'll put a new turf in. The turf was pretty old. We're freshening that with a new turf. So it's really exciting."
Improving facilities, will that be a big part of your platform at UCF?
"It's paramount. The people are No. 1. Having nice facilities is No. 2. I always say this all the time, facilities are important because that's the recruiting. Having everyday functionality for your student-athletes and for recruiting it's part of the sizzle. At the end of the day, there's never been a piece of stone help anybody. People do. But you have to have it. You have to have facilities. You have to do it. With the facilities, it's also easier to say you come here for the people. We're going to build the program. Going to continue to build the program, so student-athletes come and they know we have their best interests at heart. They're going to be competitive on the playing surface. They're going to be competitive in the classroom. They're going to get a job when they leave. They're going to have a career so they can forever change their circumstances for life. That's a promise we have for our student-athletes."
It's called the Bounce House, but it used to be called Spectrum Stadium. Is it a goal to get a naming-rights sponsor for this season?
"Every piece of real estate that can have a sign on it is a priority to build our budget. We need anybody that's interested in sponsoring and partnering with us is a priority. Yes, it is a priority."
Is there interest?
"Yeah, there's been some interest. We hired some people. We had lost some people and we hired some people. We've got to get rolling. We're grinding it out. We've got the right people in place to grind it out and ask the question to see if they have interest."
Gus was going after Elon Musk for naming rights. It's good to have your head coach do that?
"It's fantastic. It's great. I love that he's engaging with Elon. Hopefully Elon will be interested in doing something. You know what, we're so close, why not? We've got some creative ways we want to try to get in touch with him. I think Coach Malzahn doing what he did was a great first start."
You had some roots in Jonesboro, I know your daughter just graduated. After being here for a few months, maybe learning the area a little bit area, how are you liking things here?
"I love it. My son was actually born in Boca. We have Florida roots. We think of Florida as a great place. We always want to come back to Florida. We I got the call, I was excited about the opportunity and obviously accepted. Yeah, we're happy to be here. We love Florida. We just love the atmosphere. We love everything about it. More importantly, you can love the location but you've got to love the people you work with. We've got a great president, Dr. Cartwright. We've got a great administration that cares and wants to be innovative. That fits our personalities. People that want to be innovative, the student body wants to be innovative, the alumni want to be innovative. You know what, there's what we're here to do. We're going to have to do some innovative things, somethings that are a little different to build the program the way we want."
