(Week 4, 2014) Post Bethune=Cookman

A slow start on offense but a good result by the end of the game.This was a game we were expected to dominate and we did just that, though there are some factors that need to be improve upon moving forward into the tougher matchups remaining in the season. On the ground the offense struggled to produce until the passing game opened up; with the vertical passing game clicking, UCF’s offense got rolling and managed to score a touchdown or more in each quarter after the 1st. Dontravious Wilson continues to struggle to find any holes and bust out a big run while the offensive line continues trying to gel. The offensive line managed to limit the pass rush to one sack against B-CU, but the remaining teams left in the schedule should present a tougher battle in the trenches. 

It’s easy to forget after last season that Justin Holman is a true sophomore and a first time starter, it’s unreasonable to expect him to have the same impact as his more experienced predecessor, Blake Bortles. However for the next two games, I hope he is able to get into the rhythm he found in Ireland and in the 2nd quarter of this game quicker. The offense goes as he goes and the quicker he can get the passing game going the more the defense stretches out and opens up the run game. By getting into a rhythm quicker, hopefully that should improve on the disappointing 3rd down conversion rate we’ve been experiencing (merely 41% on the season so far and a shocking 3 of 9 in the Bethune Cookman game) 

Defensively we looked impressive up front, holding B-CU to 1.7 yards per carry and under 100 rushing yards on the night. Though we limited their scoring on drives or the 3rd down conversions, their starting QB managed to complete 9 of his 12 attempts and managed to complete intermediate passes with relatively little challenge from the coverage (the longest receptions being 29 yards, 14 yards, 14 yards, and 10 yards). We were successful in limiting their passing game to 101 yards, however considering B-CU’s option offense very sparingly uses the aerial attack, what I saw from the secondary leaves me hoping for improvement once we face the more potent passing attacks further along the schedule. 

All in all, here’s hoping this gave the coaches and the team a lot of film to work with to keep improving and solidifying our team going into the thick of conference play.

Charge on!

Post Game Analysis (UCF vs Penn State)

That first half made me cringe. the second half gave me hope for the rest of the season.

I won’t hold Coach O’Leary at fault for starting DiNovo, he saw something in the guy during camp that said “Start Pete”. Whatever that was didn’t show up and Pete DiNovo failed to live up to the chances he was given to right the ship. Penn State was strong up front and our pass game was ineffective in the beginning so they were able to key in on the run and stuff our offense in the 1st half. Pete DiNovo was given till the first possession of the 2nd half to keep his job, he blew it and Holman came in.

We had opportunities to win the game in the 2nd half that we let slip between our fingers; the big ones that stand out to me are the 79 yd TD which resulted from blown coverage by Shaquill Griffin, the poor open field tackle that set up the 37 yd game winning FG, and the botched handoff that became a fumble (even though nothing came of it).

What has to be noted about this game though is that all of this that we saw on offense was without one of our best receivers and our workhorse RB, both of which were injured and sitting out of the game. That silver lining to this loss gives me much hope and optimism for the rest of the season. I cant wait to get cracking at Bethune Cookman in good ol’ BHNS

NFL Draft Thoughts

As May comes closer and closer, NFL fans and college football fans alike find themselves talking more and more about the draft; college fans speculating about where their favorite players are gonna go/should go and NFL fans speculating on what direction are the front offices of their favorite teams going to go in the draft. I, along with the rest of UCF Nation, eagerly look for any clues hinting at which team looks to draft Blake Bortles. With 4 four of the top 5 picks likely looking to draft a QB (Texans, Jaguars, Browns, Raiders), where each quarterback goes varies greatly in mock drafts across the country. Some experts link Blake Bortles to the Texans and the #1 overall pick; a legitimate possibilty. Blake's impressive pro day and individual workouts impressed many teams including the Texans and the current head coach at Houston, Bill O'Brien, witnessed first hand Bortles' capability at the head of an offense when he faced O'Brien's Nittany Lions at Happy Valley in week 4. Going to the Texans would be a good situation for Blake to be in, the Texans are not lacking in offensive weapons (Andre Johnson, DeAndre Hopkins, Arian Foster) and the defense is solid (led by JJ Watt, Johnathan Joseph, Brian Cushing). Of the teams potentially looking to pick a quarterback in the top 5 picks, the Texans look like the best fit for Blake.

I firmly believe Blake Bortles is the best quarterback in this draft class, but it must be noted that I do not think going #1 overall would be the best situation for him. Though the Texans would be a good fit for him, a high standard of expectations come attached to the label of being the #1 overall pick, or even a top 10 overall pick. From the perspective of an NFL front office, every draft pick made is assessed as an investment; the higher the round, the bigger the investment. As a high draft pick, the team expects the player to make an impact as immediately as possible; thus where the issue of drafting high and low comes into play. Unfair as it may be, going #1 overall as a quarterback holds him to the standards set by players such as Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, Cam Newton, Matthew Stafford, Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Michael Vick, etc. Players who were ready to start as soon as they entered the league and make an impact on the team. Blake has shown he's a fast learner and has tremendous football IQ, but even he himself admits that he would need at least a year to adjust to the speed of the game. Most evaluations of Blake Bortles conclude that he has all the physical ability and talent desired and needed to be a successful QB in the NFL, but his mechanics need polish; his footwork could use improvement and his decision making under pressure could continue to use work.

If it were up to me, I'd rather see Blake Bortles have time to learn the speed of the game then work his way up rather than be the #1 overall pick but be thrown into the fire and expected to succeed immediately while still having to adjust to the pro game.

Spring Game Observations

The spring game left me with a lot more questions than answers than I would have liked. The unorthodox system by which the teams were assigned certainly didn't help but it was hard to distinguish whether the offense's relatively low number of big plays was indicative of poor play by the offense or superb play by the defenses. However, the spring game revealed plenty of positives as well, most notably on the defense and the receivers.

QB Outlook:
I primarily was looking to see how the offensive line and QB interacted to make the pre-snap adjustments which Blake Bortles would make in his time here. Unfortunately, Joey Grant's inactivity due to injury makes it difficult to judge from a fan's standpoint how the new starting QB will perform next season so UCF nation will have to wait until after summer camp to see. That said, Holman is my bet to be the starting QB, in part due to a bit better athleticism and a stronger arm as well as he was the more consistent between himself and DiNovo. Odds are Tyler Harris will recieve a redshirt as DiNovo did the year before so that he has a year to work out with the team and learn the system better; a year with our coaching staff will work out any kinks and rough edges to his game and he will be in a better position to be the starter of the future.

WR Corps:
Quote me on this: the receivers will carry this offense, Stanback will be explosive but the receivers will be what causes defenses to have to worry about the pass. On multiple occasions we saw receivers make spectacular catches in traffic from passes that were not necessarily the most accurate (cough, cough; JJ). We saw our receivers use their legs and put moves on the defense to fight for more yardage (often significantly more yardage). JJ Worton is undeniably the star of this offense and it certainly shined bright with his performance. Taylor Oldham looked good with the touches he received and adds to the depth of an already deep receiving corps. This receiving corps will be instrumental in the development of the quarterbacks in the coming season.

DB Performance:
The first group I have to applaud on the defense are the DBs. Yes, the passing game was a bit spotty throughout the spring game but that in large part was due to the DBs shutting down the receivers in most 1v1 situations. Coverage was generally solid and we return 4 starters at all 4 defensive back positions. Going into camp, the defense mentioned how a lack of communication resulted in a lot of the big plays allowed last season. If the spring game is indicative of what is to come, there is a notable difference in the defensive performance.

Front 7 Performance:
Until the long William Stanback TD run, there was effectively no run game. Some of that may have to do with the overmatched 2nd string O-line facing the disruptive starting D-line, a lot of that has to do with linebackers throughout the depth chart making plays in the backfield. I particularly remember seeing Mark Rucker make several tackles for loss throughout the day and other linebacker Jared Henry returned a wayward pass for a TD.On the defensive line; Thomas Niles stood out spending much of the day in the backfield, blowing past the tackles and getting to the quarterback 5 times. The D-line overall held their ground much better than the year before, opening holes for the linebackers to get into the backfield and clogging the running lanes. As impressive as the front 7's performance was, their successes must be taken with a grain of salt in consideration of some of the mismatches between 1st and 2nd string offenses and defenses.

The offense gives me some reason for concern, especially the passing game's inconsistency. Hopefully in offseason camp, Coach O'Leary and the rest of the coaching staff can get the quarterbacks' consistency to where we want it to be, ideally eliminate the overthrown and under thrown passes. William Stanback spearheads a solid running game that will lead the UCF offense but the QBs need to develop enough consistency to at least be able to manage the game. 

Off-Season, Pre Training Camp

What is to come for UCF this season? That is what is on the mind of everyone who follows this team since Storm and Blake declared for the draft. To be honest, the way our team and our system works under Coach O'Leary, it's not easy by any stretch for people outside of the program to really predict the program's direction.

I believe it was Ryan Gillespie who said in a great piece for the Central Florida Future that the success enjoyed especially in the past season by individual players and the program itself are hardly reflective of what could be demonstrated on paper. Our star players were not blue chip, high star rating recruits coming out of high school. Blake Bortles barely got any attention from big schools and even less at Quarterback, yet here he is being talked about as one of the top two QB prospects of this draft class. Other stars on our team who have had opportunities to shine on the biggest stages of college ball were merely 3-star recruits or lower who were overlooked by most major schools but were able to mature into playmakers here. Even Brandon Marshall was a lightly recruited player in his high school days. The point is that recruiting star rankings have little to do with who has emerged as the playmakers on this team and that's how it's always been for Coach O'Leary.

Knowing how little impact recruiting class ranking has on the field, all I can say is this. For those of us in UCF Nation who despair about the seemingly lackluster ratings of our recruiting class, the outlook of the team is not really reflected in our recruiting class ranking but more so in what happens in training camp. What may seem like an underwhelming recruiting class may prove to have just the right stuff for the coaching staff to be able to whip into the makings of a star through camp. It's always worked before; it'll still work now, especially with the increase in recruiting profile from all the exposure UCF earned this past season.

Remember, most people figured we were gonna finish 8-4 last season based on poor team on paper. Look how that turned out.

Post USF (Week 14, 2013)

Well, the Cardiac Kids were in full effect on Black Friday this year. We saw the most inefficient performance by our offense in my memory of the past 3 years in terms of turnover margin; -3 (our 5 to their 2). Even though I was aware all season that USF has a defense that is more than meets the eye, I too am guilty along with most of UCF Nation of sleeping on the bulls in this game. Our offense looked sluggish off the bat but even when we managed to put good drives together, sloppy play lead to the majority of our turnovers. Joey Grant got forced back into Storm Johnson and accidentally punched the ball free, free rushers forced Blake to throw an underthrown pass that ultimately got picked off, a slightly overthrown ball tipped out of a receiver’s hand and got picked off. All in all, we played a sloppy game. Our defense did its usual bend but don’t break game, we effectively shut down the USF offense for the entire first half, but as momentum swung in the favor of USF after multiple UCF drives resulted in no scores or a turnover, the defense began to wear down and allow USF to move the ball in the 2^nd half, surrendering 200 of their 280+ yards of total offense in the final 2 quarters. What I found to be concerning was the amount of times USF’s QB found a man in 1v1 coverage deep, sometimes behind the defender. We gave up a LOT of deep routes; they just never took advantage of them. If their QB put a little less arm and a little more touch on some of those deep passes, this score could’ve been a lot uglier in USF’s favor. Neither offense nor defense played their best game against that school to the west, but between the two the offense is looking like it has the most to work on, particularly in operating against an aggressive pass rush and taking better care of the ball. On defense, I’m hoping I am mistaken about what I saw from our deep passes as we go into our final game against SMU and their pass-heavy offense.

Pre Rutgers (Week 13, 2013)

We’re coming up on the first of our final 2 home games this season. The opponent is the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, a 5-4 team who are better than their record but have been having a very up and down season. The Scarlet Knights offense essentially is a see-saw and Gary Nova is the fulcrum. The offense goes as Gary Nova goes; if he has a good game, the offense will be working as efficiently as any; if he has a bad game, we see more turnovers, errant passes, and hampered offensive production as evidenced in the Louisville and Houston. Coach O’Leary said it best in his Tuesday evening radio show, Nova is a streaky passer. He’s got the ability to throw the ball as good as anyone (he’s thrown only one less passing TD than our own Blake Bortles) but when he gets pressured or doesn’t have time to get into a rhythm, he goes cold and his play drastically suffers.

 Getting pressure on the QB early or at the least having tight coverage will be the key to beating Rutgers. Our D-line, which has already been producing less than desirable results, has been weathered down through the course of the season from injuries and players leaving the team. With the losses of starters Deion Green and more recently Seyvon Lowry to season-ending injuries, UCF is forced to start freshmen who have the speed but lack the size needed to shed their blocks and generate pressure quick enough to disrupt the play and get to the quarterback. On the interior, Coach O’Leary says that we have the desired size but we need to see a better second-effort following their initial move when battling their blocker and we also need to do a better job of closing the passing and running lanes that allow quarterback to get easy completions or scramble for a big chunk of yards as we saw with Houston’s O’Korn and with South Carolina’s Connor Shaw before he went down with an injury. It goes without saying that our defense absolutely cannot afford to have another absolutely atrocious tackling display as it did against temple, hopefully the defense can tighten up the pass coverage and focus heavily on getting players in the best position to make the tackle. Barring any unforeseeable miscues or errors, if our offense continues to play as it has all season (possibly improving red-zone efficiency) and our defense gets back to the form it was before the Temple game, we should be able to execute the gameplan to take home another W en route to our Black Friday matchup with USF, clinching the first American conference title and the last AQ BCS bid of the American Athletic Conference.