Don't love the hand hire but again our OL was ass before and it doesn't really matter when we get to avoid Tulsa on the schedule this year.
UCF is 41-8 the past 4 years with Scott Frost and his band of husking best buds and Josh Heupel hiring anyone that would answer the phone. I can’t overstate the advantages we have versus the rest of the conference. If Gus sucks in Orlando, it’s because he really sucks at recruiting or his offense is complete shit (or both).
We really only have like three to four games a season that should even be questionable. We’ve got Boise State, Louisville, Cincy, and Memphis this season. Outside of that, no real concerns I would hope.
You can't just plug and play results from position coaches. Circumstances are just different and the skill position advantage vs the conference can hide things that maybe showed up in other places.
Rumored UCF Staff (Lot of Auburn Flavor) This is what I’m hearing for Gus’s UCF staff, including hires already made public: OC/QB Dan Werner or Bobby Bentley OL Herb Hand RB Ryan Applin WR Barrett Trotter TE/ST Jonathan Wallace or Ricky Brumfield Jr. DC/ILB Travis Williams Co-DC/S David Gibbs DL Jimmy Brumbaugh or Kenny Ingram OLB Rod Wilson CB Addison Williams Defensive GA - DeShaun Davis Defensive GA - Josh Holsey Offensive GA- Kam Martin This is the last post I’ll make about UCF, but I thought it was great to see a lot of Auburn guys getting their opportunity to coach on the field for the first time or move up the ranks as a coordinator. One other nugget, while he is currently undecided, I fully expect MAR to land at UCF later this spring.
Several former recent gus players. Davis and Holsey could be good. Brumbaugh was an Auburn DL in the 90s, and was most recently the DL coach at Tennessee but think he got let go because he was going to kick pruitts ass. trotter was the starting qb after cam Newton and was a failure. He did work as a scout in the nfl. Wallace was a qb turned wr at auburn and has been coaching for a few seasons Applin was an arky sy qb, who worked as a ga or analyst for gus at some point.
The defense side looks more stout than the offense side. We’ll see though. I was hoping he could get Kodi or Cadillac at OC. Oh well.
I made a joke on the last page about UCF's alum breaking into the coaching world, it was a joke, but it was serious. Since Gus has such a limited coaching tree, he often resorts to essentially hiring former players with no experience and they just kind of learned on the job. It has turned out pretty well. Seems like he's essentially just promoting some of his off the field guys at Auburn into bigger roles. It's tough to judge coaches who have mostly only been in off the field or GA roles, but for a school like UCF I like it. A lot of high character, hard workers. Barrett Trotter spent some time as a scout for the Rams when Jeff Fisher was the coach. He's been working at AU in some capacity. Former AU QB, extremely smart. Jonathan Wallace is another former AU QB/WR, high character guy. Does have some experience coaching. I think he was at Air Force last year. Ryan Aplin is another guy who was a GA when Gus first got to Auburn. Another former Gus QB Bobby Bentley was a GA for us, but he went on coach TEs at South Carolina. Gus interviewed him a few times to be our OC. I would actually like to see him get a shot to be OC at a school like UCF, but not necessarily under Gus. QB coach/OC is pretty meaningless under Gus. Addison Williams is another former GA, but didn't play at Auburn. Don't know much about him. He's a young guy so he's probably going to be a strong recruiter I think Kenny Ingram would make a great DL coach. He was another GA/off the field coach at Auburn for Gus. I don't know how much he's ever had to recruit Deshaun Davis, Josh Holsey, and Kam Martin are all recent former Auburn players. If Kam Martin is on the sideline, Gus will probably try to put him in the game at some point. Davis and Holsey will almost certainly be on the field coaches soon for Gus. Mark Anthony Richards is a stud. It sucks he was stuck behind Tank Bigsby, but I still wish he stayed.
What's funny is that he was a UCF commit until signing day when y'all got him. I can't believe it's been that long already. Feels still really recent that happened.
Glad Big Kat found a good home. I have no idea why our fans are so hyper sensitive about anyone who doesn’t want to play for Harsin. We already knew from his recruitment that Big Kat and those other kids from his HS were really close with Felton. He was a good kid, leader, stayed out of trouble, and was All SEC this year. He’d be a solid pick up for anyone, he’s just not an explosive pass rusher. If that’s what you’re expecting/needing then he won’t help you much there. We had some LBs go into the portal I feel like could pop up at UCF too. Especially since T Will is there
We could really use some LB’s that can drop back into coverage. The guys we have can drop the hammer in the rushing game but the moment a WR or TE streaks across the middle they’re wide open.
Analyst positions. They aren’t on-field coaches, so they don’t count against the count of ten on-field coaches plus 4 (?) grad assistants. Kind of like what Bama does as part of their coaching rehabilitation program except we’re doing it with new HS coaches to give them a chance to move into the college ranks.