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Re: UCF Football (2-0): #11 vs Tulsa 

Post#1161 » by UCF » Fri Oct 2, 2020 1:42 am

dsg2003mach1 wrote:
UCF wrote:The penalties had a lot to do with ECU mimicking the snap count. That caused the penalty issues and was eventually stopped by the officials.


interesting, hadn't seen that. Those obviously aren't the same penalties UCF has struggled with previously


Dillon mentioned it in the post game press conference.


Also, for those attending the game Saturday here’s a PSA from DW (hint: wear your damn masks).
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Re: UCF Football (2-0): #11 vs Tulsa 

Post#1162 » by Knightro » Sun Oct 4, 2020 4:48 am

I think we can go ahead and put that “ECU was barking a fake snap count” thing to bed after tonight’s disaster.

Just an absolutely horrendous loss.

Some unfortunate trends are starting to emerge with Josh Heupel.

The Knights are now 2-5 in one score games in his tenure.

The Knights are now 0-4 in games where they get held under 3.7 yards per carry as a team.

The Knights are now 2-5 in games where they have 2+ turnovers (FCS games excluded).

The offense is VERY simplistic. They don’t run a lot of different plays. They just run the few plays they do have at such a massive tempo that 80-90% of opponents just can’t keep up. But when teams can shutdown the run (and thus shut down the tempo), Heupel just has no legitimate plan B.
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Re: UCF Football (2-0): #11 vs Tulsa 

Post#1163 » by MagicFan101 » Sun Oct 4, 2020 5:30 pm

Knightro wrote:I think we can go ahead and put that “ECU was barking a fake snap count” thing to bed after tonight’s disaster.

Just an absolutely horrendous loss.

Some unfortunate trends are starting to emerge with Josh Heupel.

The Knights are now 2-5 in one score games in his tenure.

The Knights are now 0-4 in games where they get held under 3.7 yards per carry as a team.

The Knights are now 2-5 in games where they have 2+ turnovers (FCS games excluded).

The offense is VERY simplistic. They don’t run a lot of different plays. They just run the few plays they do have at such a massive tempo that 80-90% of opponents just can’t keep up. But when teams can shutdown the run (and thus shut down the tempo), Heupel just has no legitimate plan B.


I would add Penalties to the list of things to raise concern about for this team.

Even in the win over East Carolina the # of penalties was something the coaching staff had to look to clean up ... and they did not.
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Re: UCF Football (2-1): @ Memphis 

Post#1164 » by dsg2003mach1 » Sun Oct 4, 2020 5:51 pm

it seems penalties have gotten worse year over year, incredibly frustrating. It really does seem they don't have much when it comes to grinding out consistent short yardage when they can't go for the huge gain. Hopefully they finish the conference strong and have a shot to play for that championship
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Re: UCF Football (2-1): @ Memphis 

Post#1165 » by UCFJayBird » Mon Oct 5, 2020 1:35 am

So I went to the game last night. Worst game experience ever, lol. Ranked from biggest reasons to smallest. a) we lost, b) it was a 4.5 hour game, WTF. c) it was raining, that always sucks. d) COVID precautions.

-While I think UCF did a fairly decent job in coming up with a game plan on how to manage crowd spacing, I think there were a few missteps that probably could've been handled better. The student section was clearly just a jumbled mess with no spacing as far as I could tell. But good luck trying to get a student section to follow rules anyway, I was surprised they were able to keep 99% of people wearing masks the entire game.

-My biggest complaint on spacing is actually that they they alternated rows where they would basically block off like 10 foot sections for groups to sit in. So in row A it would be 10 feet of space, 10 feet of yellow tape where you can't sit, and then 10 feet of space again. Which is good. But then in Row B, they would just alternate that exact same space. So 10 feet of yellow tape, then 10 feet of space, then 10 feet of tape. Which means the people at the edge of each section were basically within 2 feet of the person sitting up one row and one seat to the right or left. Kind of defeated the purpose for those people.

-Mask enforcement was done pretty well. I saw some people complaining that they would be called out the second they took their mask down to take a drink, but I imagine that wasn't the case for the most part. Towards the end of the game, one of the mask enforcers told a guy a few rows up from me he needed to put his on correctly and the guy had a rant about people in other sections not doing it (which wasn't really true). i think the guy was just agitated cause we were blowing it.

-Funny moment of the night: When our kicker missed a FG and they started playing "hey look ma, i made it!" My friend I were just screaming, "NO he didn't! THIS IS THE WORST SONG TO PLAY RIGHT NOW!"

-Postives - lines were super short (though I didn't buy any concessions), and it was pretty quick getting out of there.

Honestly through the 1st quarter I was fine. I was annoyed it took an hour, but we were winning so I was fine. But that second half was brutal and everything that had made the day annoying came flooding forward and I was pretty depressed leaving campus. Questioning whether I want to attend another game this season. I probably will once we get another win under our belts and I feel better about the team. Thoughts on the game in the next post.
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Re: UCF Football (2-1): @ Memphis 

Post#1166 » by UCFJayBird » Mon Oct 5, 2020 1:46 am

Game Thoughts:

-This team has looked incredibly sloppy these first three games, and Tulsa knew how to take advantage. Take away their turnovers in the first quarter and they blow us out badly.

-The penalties need to be resolved. I don't know what is going on, but the offense needs to figure it out. I hate to see Matt Lee getting so much hate online, fans can be irrational jerks, but damn dude. He was messing up a LOT last night. You could make a compelling argument he lost us the game last night, though I think that would be scapegoating. There's plenty of blame to go around.

-Fans calling for Heupel to be fired are a bit overzealous as usual. I do think the lack of discipline on the team is starting to show though. Too much jawing, too many penalties. Maybe they though Tulsa beating them last year was a fluke and thought they were going to walk their way to victory this season but this should be a huge wake up call for them.

-I'm not a fan of Heupel's play calling. Haven't been since he got here. He's a young coach, so hopefully it improves. But it was a wet field and it was basically raining the entire first half, and he was going side to side with jet sweeps and trying to bounce the RBs outside the entire time. Just seemed like really poor judgment on the play calls.

-Players deserve more of the blame for this one though. At the end of the day Heupel isn't the one with 18 penalties.

-The referees were a joke. I know that's the default for any salty fan. But man were they really bad last night. I don't know if i've ever seen offensive targeting called on a WR. I don't know what they said on TV, but let me know if they were just as flabbergasted as we were in the stands. Also, there was a pass interference called on us, I think on 3rd and long, and the ball was WAY uncatchable. It landed on the Tulsa bench 10 yards out of bounds. No clue what the refs were thinking there. Meanwhile I saw numerous plays down the stretch as we were trying to come back where Tulsa was dragging our guys down downfield and getting away with it. One was particularly egregious, and I think it killed the drive. Also while I didn't see this, my friend seated next to me did. It was in the first half, we had the ball back at our own 15-20 yard line. We run the ball and it's going to be pretty close to the line to get. My friend swears he saw the line judge look at the stick, look where the ball is, and MOVE the stick a foot or two so he wouldn't have to deal with a measurement. I saw them numerous times being sloppy with placing the sticks and 100% believe he saw right (and that was in our favor btw).
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Re: UCF Football (2-1): @ Memphis 

Post#1167 » by Xatticus » Mon Oct 5, 2020 4:51 am

UCFJayBird wrote:Game Thoughts:

-This team has looked incredibly sloppy these first three games, and Tulsa knew how to take advantage. Take away their turnovers in the first quarter and they blow us out badly.

-The penalties need to be resolved. I don't know what is going on, but the offense needs to figure it out. I hate to see Matt Lee getting so much hate online, fans can be irrational jerks, but damn dude. He was messing up a LOT last night. You could make a compelling argument he lost us the game last night, though I think that would be scapegoating. There's plenty of blame to go around.

-Fans calling for Heupel to be fired are a bit overzealous as usual. I do think the lack of discipline on the team is starting to show though. Too much jawing, too many penalties. Maybe they though Tulsa beating them last year was a fluke and thought they were going to walk their way to victory this season but this should be a huge wake up call for them.

-I'm not a fan of Heupel's play calling. Haven't been since he got here. He's a young coach, so hopefully it improves. But it was a wet field and it was basically raining the entire first half, and he was going side to side with jet sweeps and trying to bounce the RBs outside the entire time. Just seemed like really poor judgment on the play calls.

-Players deserve more of the blame for this one though. At the end of the day Heupel isn't the one with 18 penalties.

-The referees were a joke. I know that's the default for any salty fan. But man were they really bad last night. I don't know if i've ever seen offensive targeting called on a WR. I don't know what they said on TV, but let me know if they were just as flabbergasted as we were in the stands. Also, there was a pass interference called on us, I think on 3rd and long, and the ball was WAY uncatchable. It landed on the Tulsa bench 10 yards out of bounds. No clue what the refs were thinking there. Meanwhile I saw numerous plays down the stretch as we were trying to come back where Tulsa was dragging our guys down downfield and getting away with it. One was particularly egregious, and I think it killed the drive. Also while I didn't see this, my friend seated next to me did. It was in the first half, we had the ball back at our own 15-20 yard line. We run the ball and it's going to be pretty close to the line to get. My friend swears he saw the line judge look at the stick, look where the ball is, and MOVE the stick a foot or two so he wouldn't have to deal with a measurement. I saw them numerous times being sloppy with placing the sticks and 100% believe he saw right (and that was in our favor btw).


I watched the whole game.

I saw the targeting call. The TV guys said it was a good call. It's the first time I've ever seen such a call, but I tend to agree. He dropped his helmet and led with it. It was certainly an odd call though.

I saw the pass interference you referenced. That ball was uncatchable. There was no mention of that on the broadcast. The defender was too handsy, but yeah... you couldn't even see where the ball landed on the replay. That's how far off it was.

The officials let the Tulsa DBs get away with too much grabbing all night long. I don't know if it's the play you were referring to, but there was one long throw where the Tulsa DB had the collar of the UCF receiver and was holding and pulling it for a good ten yards or so as the ball was coming in. Gilmore said he thought it was just two guys being physical and a good no call, but I thought it was an obvious pass interference.

As for Lee... his performance was pretty difficult to defend. I've never seen that many penalties from an individual lineman and it's rather uncommon to see penalties against a center at all. He was listed as a tackle from what I saw, so I don't know if he is new to the position, but that was a terrible performance and I don't understand why he wasn't yanked. Centers don't have to be great blockers as they almost always have help. They just have to not **** up. He couldn't stop **** up last night.
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Re: UCF Football (2-1): @ Memphis 

Post#1168 » by UCFJayBird » Mon Oct 5, 2020 2:35 pm

Xatticus wrote:
UCFJayBird wrote:Game Thoughts:

-This team has looked incredibly sloppy these first three games, and Tulsa knew how to take advantage. Take away their turnovers in the first quarter and they blow us out badly.

-The penalties need to be resolved. I don't know what is going on, but the offense needs to figure it out. I hate to see Matt Lee getting so much hate online, fans can be irrational jerks, but damn dude. He was messing up a LOT last night. You could make a compelling argument he lost us the game last night, though I think that would be scapegoating. There's plenty of blame to go around.

-Fans calling for Heupel to be fired are a bit overzealous as usual. I do think the lack of discipline on the team is starting to show though. Too much jawing, too many penalties. Maybe they though Tulsa beating them last year was a fluke and thought they were going to walk their way to victory this season but this should be a huge wake up call for them.

-I'm not a fan of Heupel's play calling. Haven't been since he got here. He's a young coach, so hopefully it improves. But it was a wet field and it was basically raining the entire first half, and he was going side to side with jet sweeps and trying to bounce the RBs outside the entire time. Just seemed like really poor judgment on the play calls.

-Players deserve more of the blame for this one though. At the end of the day Heupel isn't the one with 18 penalties.

-The referees were a joke. I know that's the default for any salty fan. But man were they really bad last night. I don't know if i've ever seen offensive targeting called on a WR. I don't know what they said on TV, but let me know if they were just as flabbergasted as we were in the stands. Also, there was a pass interference called on us, I think on 3rd and long, and the ball was WAY uncatchable. It landed on the Tulsa bench 10 yards out of bounds. No clue what the refs were thinking there. Meanwhile I saw numerous plays down the stretch as we were trying to come back where Tulsa was dragging our guys down downfield and getting away with it. One was particularly egregious, and I think it killed the drive. Also while I didn't see this, my friend seated next to me did. It was in the first half, we had the ball back at our own 15-20 yard line. We run the ball and it's going to be pretty close to the line to get. My friend swears he saw the line judge look at the stick, look where the ball is, and MOVE the stick a foot or two so he wouldn't have to deal with a measurement. I saw them numerous times being sloppy with placing the sticks and 100% believe he saw right (and that was in our favor btw).


I watched the whole game.

I saw the targeting call. The TV guys said it was a good call. It's the first time I've ever seen such a call, but I tend to agree. He dropped his helmet and led with it. It was certainly an odd call though.

I saw the pass interference you referenced. That ball was uncatchable. There was no mention of that on the broadcast. The defender was too handsy, but yeah... you couldn't even see where the ball landed on the replay. That's how far off it was.

The officials let the Tulsa DBs get away with too much grabbing all night long. I don't know if it's the play you were referring to, but there was one long throw where the Tulsa DB had the collar of the UCF receiver and was holding and pulling it for a good ten yards or so as the ball was coming in. Gilmore said he thought it was just two guys being physical and a good no call, but I thought it was an obvious pass interference.

As for Lee... his performance was pretty difficult to defend. I've never seen that many penalties from an individual lineman and it's rather uncommon to see penalties against a center at all. He was listed as a tackle from what I saw, so I don't know if he is new to the position, but that was a terrible performance and I don't understand why he wasn't yanked. Centers don't have to be great blockers as they almost always have help. They just have to not **** up. He couldn't stop **** up last night.


Interesting on the targeting call. From the stands it looked like he certainly lowered his helmet, but in the same way every WR does that on every play as they're about to get hit and taken to the ground. It looked to me like he was bracing for the defender, who happened to come down in a manner that put his helmet in front of the WR. I didn't think it looked like he intentionally led with his helmet into the defender. *shrugs*

That's 100% the play i was referring to on the Tulsa DB down field.

As for Lee, the only thing I can think of is that no other player was even remotely ready to handle center duty (which is a bit scary). You would think after a while we would go to the backup if there was one.
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Re: UCF Football (2-1): @ Memphis 

Post#1169 » by Xatticus » Sun Oct 18, 2020 2:32 am

I think it’s time for a new DC.
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Re: UCF Football (2-1): @ Memphis 

Post#1170 » by Knightro » Sun Oct 18, 2020 3:34 pm

Xatticus wrote:I think it’s time for a new DC.


I would not be surprised whatsoever if Randy Shannon and UCF "mutually agree" to part ways after this season.

It's easy to forget that UCF only paid Shannon $300K per year the first two years he was here because he was still getting paid by the Gators.

As of 2020, he's the highest paid G5 coordinator making $1M dollars.

The Knights already have a guy with defensive coordinator experience (albeit not overly successful experience) in Willie Martinez on the staff who they would likely promote to DC when Shannon walks.
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1171 » by UCF » Sun Oct 18, 2020 4:14 pm

Defense has to make a stop. Offense made mistakes too but that many points should win you a game.
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1172 » by UCFJayBird » Sun Oct 18, 2020 6:52 pm

A few thoughts:

1. Shannon 100% needs to go considering the money we're paying him. I do want to give him a little slack in that we had some significant players on defense opt out this season and the NCAA has dragged their heels for whatever reasons in approving our transfers that could assist.

2. Does anyone understand what Memphis was doing going for so many 2 point conversions? i mean we missed an extra point, so it made sense that we eventually said "let's try and make it a solid 3 TD lead instead of 20 points", but then Memphis would score and go for 2. And this repeated a few times. Even late in the game they were going to cut the lead to 7, but instead went for 2 and cut it to 6, but if they failed they would've been down 8. I don't know if I've seen a coach so aggressive on 2 point conversions. My only thought is maybe he refused to get into a overtime situation? But then if that were the case he could always have gone for 2 at the end of the game. I guess it worked in the end?

3. Heupel needs to be willing to kick a FG more often. Twice we turned it over on 4th and long when we could've kicked a FG. One was a chip shot from inside the 5. I get being aggressive and not wanting to settle for 3 points, but 4th and Goal from the 4? I say kick that FG. The other would've been a 49 yarder, so I understand that one a little more, but from what I've heard Obarski has the leg. obviously the shank at the end makes you think maybe he's not great from distance, but maybe kicking a long FG attempt earlier calms his nerves or makes him more comfortable kicking a 40 yarder to win the game when all he's done is kick extra points all season.

4. At least the penalties were under control (especially on offense).

5. Sucks as a fan to go from thinking this was going to be another stellar year to playing for a middling bowl game. But it's gotta be brutal for these players given the conditions and everything else going on. I don't blame them for being a bit heated on the sidelines, and I don't blame Heup for a player or two losing their composure like some fans are.

6. I'm not giving up on Heupel. I think he's a good coach, we're just going through some growing pains for a first time HC. People are too quick to want to call for his head. It's a crazy year, we didn't even know if we'd have football this season.
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1173 » by UCF » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:36 pm

We still have the number one rated offense in the NCAA last I saw. For those hoping for a coaching change, that huge buyout is now gone that protected us from losing Heupel. I hope this lull might help us keep him a Knight for years to come.
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1174 » by UCFJayBird » Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:28 pm

UCF wrote:We still have the number one rated offense in the NCAA last I saw. For those hoping for a coaching change, that huge buyout is now gone that protected us from losing Heupel. I hope this lull might help us keep him a Knight for years to come.


why is the buyout gone?
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1175 » by tiderulz » Mon Oct 19, 2020 6:23 pm

UCF wrote:We still have the number one rated offense in the NCAA last I saw. For those hoping for a coaching change, that huge buyout is now gone that protected us from losing Heupel. I hope this lull might help us keep him a Knight for years to come.

by what? passing yards? kind a limited ranking. not #1 in rushing or pts.
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1176 » by UCFJayBird » Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:54 pm

tiderulz wrote:
UCF wrote:We still have the number one rated offense in the NCAA last I saw. For those hoping for a coaching change, that huge buyout is now gone that protected us from losing Heupel. I hope this lull might help us keep him a Knight for years to come.

by what? passing yards? kind a limited ranking. not #1 in rushing or pts.


https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/21

YPG I think is the metric NCAA.com uses. Obviously up for debate. I'd say offensive PPG is more important, which I believe we're 5th.
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1177 » by UCF » Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:13 pm

UCFJayBird wrote:
UCF wrote:We still have the number one rated offense in the NCAA last I saw. For those hoping for a coaching change, that huge buyout is now gone that protected us from losing Heupel. I hope this lull might help us keep him a Knight for years to come.


why is the buyout gone?



It’s not entirely gone, but greatly reduced after the bowl season.

“A word of warning, though, for UCF fans. Next season, Heupel's buyout dips significantly from a lump sum of $10 million to 50% of the remaining years on Heupel's contract. After this season, Heupel will have four years remaining on his deal at about $2.3 million per year ($9.2 million total).Dec 5, 2019” https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/mike-bianchi-commentary/os-sp-ucf-josh-heupel-mike-bianchi-1206-20191206-flhdgcxs7rebbpillmjga7peje-story.html%3foutputType=amp
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Re: UCF Football (2-2): vs Tulane 

Post#1178 » by UCF » Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:18 pm

News you can’t help but smile hearing...
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Re: UCF Football (3-2): @ Houston 

Post#1179 » by Knightro » Sun Nov 1, 2020 12:07 pm

Impressive win at Houston considering the circumstances.

Four defensive starters were suspended for an incident with campus police, yet the Knights had arguably their most impressive defensive performance of the season.

Weird how that works.
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Re: UCF Football (3-2): @ Houston 

Post#1180 » by dsg2003mach1 » Mon Nov 2, 2020 2:11 pm

ya, finally a pretty solid performance from the D. Hopefully the kicker got a little confidence too

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