Official UCF Sports Thread - Basketball: NIT Bid? Football: Spring Practice Underway

[Knightro]

Chris Dawson interviewed for the Alabama head strength and conditioning job this time last year.

According to USA Today he was the 25th highest paid S&C coach in the country in 2020 getting 400K from Kansas State.

The guy from Auburn was the 8th highest, getting 500K per year.

His salary does not count towards Malzahn’s assistant coach pool either.

[UCF]

That’s a lucrative job to have and hopefully he does a great job. I’m surprised he didn’t hire his former strength coach.

If anyone is interested in our new coaches methodology:
https://training-conditioning.com/article/strength-in-unity/

[UCF]

In the not good category of news:

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[Knightro]

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[EasternMagic]

It seemed like when the Gus hire was announced, everyone (including myself) was not happy about it. Has he completely flipped the narrative in a matter of days? I'm legitimately excited about the hire(s) now.

[craig01]

It seemed like when the Gus hire was announced, everyone (including myself) was not happy about it. Has he completely flipped the narrative in a matter of days? I'm legitimately excited about the hire(s) now.

Totally agree

I think the GM hire truly brings stature to what the UCF brand has established over the past four years.

[Knightro]

It seemed like when the Gus hire was announced, everyone (including myself) was not happy about it. Has he completely flipped the narrative in a matter of days? I'm legitimately excited about the hire(s) now.

I definitely did not want him.

My biggest concerns were motivation and adjusting to a much smaller recruiting and assistant coach budget.

The track record for coaches coming straight off power 5 jobs and dropping down to group of 5 jobs has not seen much success.

Just recently along the I-4 corridor we saw Charlie Strong get fired by Texas, immediately take over a very talented USF team and run it into the ground in 3 years. It always felt like Strong felt he was too big or too good for the job and he was just waiting for a better school to come along and pluck him away.

I don’t want to judge too much off one press conference and a week’s worth of interviews and coaching hires, but my concerns about motivation have been eased a good bit. Gus seems very fired up just to be away from everything that goes into being the head coach at Auburn (boosters meddling, fans with unrealistic expectations, Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M in the same division, etc.)

The adjustment to having less money to spend is definitely real and I think you’re going to see that manifest itself out with a few of the upcoming coaching hires which are going to be lesser known names (not saying they’re going to be bad coaches or recruiters) who are going to be cheap.

Last year Auburn spent 6.67M on 10 assistants.

UCF has a 3.3M budget for assistant coach spending in 2021 and has already spent 1.35M of that on just 3 assistants. So they only have 1.95M left for the remaining 7 assistants which isn’t a lot of money.

I do think Gus is going to mitigate that somewhat by being his own offensive coordinator, but still.

The “main” assistant hires by Gus have already been made IMO.

[dsg2003mach1]

I didn’t know what to think of him but it seems mostly positive so far. I do have a twinge of concern about all these hires of people that used to work together. Maybe they’re the right people, maybe it’s nepotism. That and touting accolades from 10-15 years ago.

Overall my outlook on the season is better than before DW started the exodus

[UCF]

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[UCF]

I’m interested to see what facilities and programs change with the new leadership. Coming from Auburn with a budget that’s triple what we have will be a big change from what he’s used to having.

I’m curious to how the donors are reacting to the changes. Time will tell if he they can be successful.

[UCF]

It seemed like when the Gus hire was announced, everyone (including myself) was not happy about it. Has he completely flipped the narrative in a matter of days? I'm legitimately excited about the hire(s) now.

Totally agree

I think the GM hire truly brings stature to what the UCF brand has established over the past four years.

It definitely won over the media landing him as our next coach. He is a name brand and that will hopefully open doors to land better recruits, donors and sponsors.

[UCF]

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[Knightro]

Blackmon has loads of experience in the state of Alabama. He's never coached outside of the state until right now actually.

Here's his resume.

2020 Troy (Special Teams Coordinator)
2019 Troy (Special Teams Coordinator/TE/H-Backs Coach)
2018 Troy (TE/H-Backs Coach)
2017 Auburn (Offensive Analyst)
2009-2016 Opelika High School (Head Coach)
1996-2008 Opelika High School (Offensive Coordinator)

Opelika High School is only about 10 miles from Auburn's campus and they had four kids commit to Auburn during Blackmon's tenure as head coach.

[UCF]

Hopefully these guys can recruit well. Gus seemed intent on recruiting within a 6 hour radius. Former HS coaches could be a good thing.

[Knightro]

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This is interesting.

Bentley committed to join the South Florida coaching staff almost a month ago. The report first came out back on January 29th. But he hasn't signed a contract yet.

South Florida is offering him the WR Coach/Passing Game Coordinator position.

UCF is offering him the Offensive Coordinator/QB Coach position.

He would not be calling plays at either spot. He coached running backs and tight ends at South Carolina and was a surprisingly good recruiter for someone who had never coached in college until his late 40s.

[Knightro]

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Role still TBD. I suspect it will be OC/QB though.

Kinne is only 32. Like Rittenberg said, he's a major high riser.

He has gone from GA to analyst to offensive coordinator in just four years of coaching. He also led a 4th quarter comeback to beat UCF in Orlando back in 2011: https://www.espn.com/college-football/game?gameId=313072116

Gus did coach him for a year at Tulsa in 2008, but Kinne didn't get on the field because he had to sit out that season after transferring in from Texas.

[UCF]

I like the balance of experience on the coaching staff hires so far. I wonder with this one if we’re giving up on Bentley.

[Knightro]

I like the balance of experience on the coaching staff hires so far. I wonder with this one if we’re giving up on Bentley.

I would assume he politely told Gus that he was going to be sticking to his South Florida commitment.

Current UCF Coaching Staff
HC: Gus Malzahn

OC/QB: GJ Kinne
RB: Open
WR: Open
TE: Open
OL: Herb Hand

DC: Travis Williams
DL: Open
LB: Open
Co-DC/Secondary: David Gibbs

STC: Brian Blackmon

Malzahn can bring on a total of 10 assistants. He still has five available spots at the moment.

A lot of special teams coordinators also coach a position group and Blackmon has experience coaching TE and H-Backs, so he may double up there. There's been some speculation that Williams may also double up and coach linebackers like Randy Shannon did. Or perhaps Williams will coach inside linebackers with another coach coming in specifically for outside linebackers.

We'll see. Staff is halfway home.

[Knightro]

I like the balance of experience on the coaching staff hires so far. I wonder with this one if we’re giving up on Bentley.

I would assume he politely told Gus that he was going to be sticking to his South Florida commitment.

Current UCF Coaching Staff
HC: Gus Malzahn

OC/QB: GJ Kinne
RB: Open
WR: Open
TE: Open
OL: Herb Hand

DC: Travis Williams
DL: Open
LB: Open
Co-DC/Secondary: David Gibbs

STC: Brian Blackmon

Malzahn can bring on a total of 10 assistants. He still has five available spots at the moment.

A lot of special teams coordinators also coach a position group and Blackmon has experience coaching TE and H-Backs, so he may double up there. There's been some speculation that Williams may also double up and coach linebackers like Randy Shannon did. Or perhaps Williams will coach inside linebackers with another coach coming in specifically for outside linebackers.

We'll see. Staff is halfway home.

One mystery solved.

Read on Twitter

[EasternMagic]

It seemed like when the Gus hire was announced, everyone (including myself) was not happy about it. Has he completely flipped the narrative in a matter of days? I'm legitimately excited about the hire(s) now.

I definitely did not want him.

My biggest concerns were motivation and adjusting to a much smaller recruiting and assistant coach budget.

The track record for coaches coming straight off power 5 jobs and dropping down to group of 5 jobs has not seen much success.

Just recently along the I-4 corridor we saw Charlie Strong get fired by Texas, immediately take over a very talented USF team and run it into the ground in 3 years. It always felt like Strong felt he was too big or too good for the job and he was just waiting for a better school to come along and pluck him away.

I don’t want to judge too much off one press conference and a week’s worth of interviews and coaching hires, but my concerns about motivation have been eased a good bit. Gus seems very fired up just to be away from everything that goes into being the head coach at Auburn (boosters meddling, fans with unrealistic expectations, Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M in the same division, etc.)

The adjustment to having less money to spend is definitely real and I think you’re going to see that manifest itself out with a few of the upcoming coaching hires which are going to be lesser known names (not saying they’re going to be bad coaches or recruiters) who are going to be cheap.

Last year Auburn spent 6.67M on 10 assistants.

UCF has a 3.3M budget for assistant coach spending in 2021 and has already spent 1.35M of that on just 3 assistants. So they only have 1.95M left for the remaining 7 assistants which isn’t a lot of money.

I do think Gus is going to mitigate that somewhat by being his own offensive coordinator, but still.

The “main” assistant hires by Gus have already been made IMO.

Total agree. I'm hesitantly excited. I do worry about too high of expectations for his first year and even his second. I like that he's getting out offers to some of these big 4 or 5 star guys too, but I also wonder if he's in for a rude awakening in that department. BUT if he does land some, that would be massive for us.

All that being said, I did genuinely believe that he was excited about being here after listening to him speak. And he has more charisma and attitude than Heupel ever displayed, outside of the time when he paraded out on the field. I'm just happy that I never have to listen to Heupel say "aight" 19 times in the span of 60 seconds ever again.