UCF Football Midseason Report: Evaluating the Knights Season So Far
UCF is 5-1 Through 6 Games and has all their goals in front of them
The 2022 season is officially at the midway point for UCF Football.
The Knights stand at 5-1 through 6 games and 2-0 in AAC play with all of their goals still in front of them.
The team has taken advantage of a home heavy schedule to start the season to put together their best record through 6 games since the 2018 season (when they were 6-0) and won their first two conference games for the first time since 2018.
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster for the 2022 Knights that has so far been defined by inconsistent play. When they’ve looked good, they’ve looked amazing. When they’ve looked bad, it’s been unbearable to watch.
Despite the inconsistencies, UCF is 5-1, 3 spots out of the AP Top 25 Poll and playing their best ball of the season over the past 2 weeks.
Let’s take a look at UCF’s season so far and evaluate their play.
Offense
The offense has been the reason for the aforementioned inconsistencies.
They’ve looked outstanding in 3 games and looked below average in the other 3 games.
From weeks 1-4, UCF put together some high scoring games, including a 56-point and 40-point outing, but both came against weaker competition and even in those games, some warts showed.
When the Knights stepped up in competition against their two Power 5 opponents, the offense looked out of sync and struggled to sustain drives.
A big reason for those struggles was the inconsistent play of QB John Rhys Plumlee, an ineffective passing attack and an offensive line with two new pieces that was struggling to gel.
UCF averaged just 27 points per game against FBS competition in those first 4 games.
During that span, JRP struggled to get the passing game going, averaging just 173 yards over those 3 games in which UCF suffered their only loss of the season to Louisville. But things really came to a head when the Ole Miss transfer threw for a season low 49 yards in the win over Georgia Tech.
At that point, the Knights were 3-1, but the offense looked bad and was struggling to score or really do anything. The Knights only scored 2 touchdowns in the loss to Louisville, only scored 1 offensive TD in the win over GT and needed a huge 2nd half against FAU to get the offense going.
The receivers, outside of some good performances from Javon Baker, were essentially rendered useless. The offense lacked excitement. There were very few big plays. Lots of drives stalled and resulted in punts. The play calling seemed vanilla and repetitive.
While the rushing attack was statistically top 5 in the country, it became way too one dimensional and you saw the offense average just 27 points and 441 total yards in that first month.
Overall, it started to look like JRP may not be the man for the starting QB job.
Fans were visibly frustrated by an offense that seemingly had so many weapons and promise but was looking like a unit that was going to be unreliable.
Then Something Clicked
Conference play started and something happened.
The offense clicked.
In the AAC opener against SMU, the Knights offense was having its typical struggles in the first half, producing just 10 points. Then in the 2nd half, it’s like UCF realized they had way too much talent to be playing this bad and something changed.
The Knights went on to score 31 points in the second half, blowing out the Mustangs, while seeing the passing attack finally break out of its slump.
UCF had a pair of 100-yard receiving games, from Baker and Ryan O’Keefe, the first time that had happened all season.
But most importantly, Plumlee found his stride and exploded in the 2nd half. He finished with 316 passing yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions and made some absolute dime passes in the process.
Then last week’s game happened - what you could probably call JRP’s coming out party.
Plumlee tied a school record with 7 total touchdowns, including 4 passing and 3 rushing. Overall, he went 18-of-22 for 373 yards in by far his most efficient and complete game of the season, which led to a UCF record 70 (!!!) points against a conference opponent!
The improvement he showed was unbelievable. He completed passes on the move, made his progressions, had great timing, hit receivers in stride and overall made dime throw after dime throw.
The turnaround we’ve witnessed over the last 6 quarters from JRP has been nothing short of amazing. I am not sure what clicked.
Gus Malzahn has said things have “slowed down” for JRP. I believe its a combo of gaining more chemistry with his receivers, getting more reps at the QB position and just an increase in his confidence.
Since that clunker against Louisville, the UCF offense has averaged 44.4 points per game and 551 total yards of offense. The Knights now rank 5th in total offense with 525 yards/game and 13th in scoring offense in the country at 41.3 points per game.
They are 4th in the nation in rushing offense as well.
On top of that, UCF has been able to identify some new weapons with RB RJ Harvey having a breakout over the past few games, leading the RB’s in YPC, while Auburn transfer WR Kobe Hudson has finally found his groove, hauling in over 100 yards and 2 TD’s in the win over Temple
UCF has to prove they can do this on a consistent basis, but the offense appears to be peaking at the right time and continuing to improve.
Offensive Ranks:
Total Offense: 5th in the nation; 1st in the AAC
Scoring (Points Per Game): 13th in the nation; 1st in the AAC
Rushing Offense: 4th in the nation; 1st in the AAC
Passing Offense: 49th in the nation; 7th in the AAC
3rd Down Conversion Percentage: Tied for 20th in the nation; 2nd in the AAC
4th Down Conversion Percentage: Tied for 11th in the nation; 1st in the AAC
Offensive Awards:
MVP: QB John Rhys Plumlee
Best RB: RJ Harvey
Best WR: Javon Baker
Best Weapon: WR Javon Baker
Most Versatile: WR Ryan O’Keefe
Best Newcomer: WR Javon Baker
Best Freshman: Xavier Townsend
Best Performance: JRP vs. Temple
Defense
The defense has really been the story of the season.
In the 2nd year of Defensive Coordinator Travis Williams system, the UCF D has made another huge jump.
Quite honestly, the defense propped up the offense early in the season and was a major reason that UCF was able to stay in games and win over the first month when the offense was struggling.
While the defense has given up some big plays and chunk yards here and there, they have been the definition of “bend don’t break” and have been extremely stout in the most important moments.
Overall, they are one of the top defenses in the country and arguably the best defense in the AAC.
Look at these measurables nationally and in the conference.
Scoring Defense: #8 in the nation, #1 in the AAC
Total Defense: #26 in the nation, #3 in the AAC
Passing Defense: #44 in the nation: #5 in the AAC
Passing Yards Per Completion: #28 in the country, #1 in the AAC
Red Zone Defense: #1 in the country
Stop Rate: 11th in the country
On top of that, UCF’s defense hasn’t allowed one team to score over 20 points. That means not even one team has scored 3 touchdowns on UCF all season.
But the red zone defense has been in a different stratosphere. When the field gets shortened, UCF’s defense is absolutely dominant. Opponents have only scored on 52% of their attempts inside the red zone and UCF has given up just 5 touchdowns the entire season inside the red zone with 1 of those being a garbage time score.
It’s truly been an impressive start to the season for UCF’s defense.
While the Knights tend to give up some big plays which is why they aren’t inside the top 25 for total defense, it really hasn’t mattered. They get stops when they need to, they have been incredible on 3rd down to prevent drives from extending and they essentially don’t allow teams to score that often.
Even against top offenses, this defense has been lockdown. Take SMU for example. Entering the game, the Mustangs were top 10 nationally in both scoring offense and passing offense. The Knights defense limited them to 19 points, their lowest output of the season and didn’t allow a single passing TD to them.
Really the only knock on the defense so far, outside of giving up some yards, is they haven’t shown a knack for producing turnovers. They currently only have 7 turnovers on the season, which ranks them in the bottom third of the nation.
It’s somewhat surprising considering all the talent they have on the defensive side of the ball. Usually, UCF defenses are aggressive and force turnovers.
Even more surprising is that UCF only has 2 interceptions all season considering how talented the secondary is.
So far that hasn’t hurt them, but I think they will need to start generating some turnovers especially with the schedule getting tougher and games likely going to be closer.
Regardless, the defense has been the best part of the team so far.
Defensive Awards:
MVP: DE Tre’Mon Morris Brash
Best DB: Divaad Wilson
Best LB: Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste
Best DL: TMB
Most Lock Down: CB Corey Thornton
Best Newcomer: LB Jason Johnson
Best Freshman: DB Nikai Martinez
Best Performance: Corey Thornton vs. SMU or Tre’Mon vs. GT
Special Teams
Special teams had a rough start to the year.
Daniel Obarski began the season as the starting kicker and missed both of his field goal attempts. Punter Andrew Osteen was not getting much yards in his punts and not pinning opponents close to their end zones.
On top of that, Amari Johnson has been out this entire season so far with injury which forced the Knights to replace their top returner.
Despite the rough start, UCF has been able to turn it around with 2 key changes. Coach Malzahn finally replaced the embattled Obarski for freshman kicker Colton Boomer and transitioned punting duties over to Mitch McCarthy.
Since taking over as the full time place kicker, Boomer has just been a perfect 7-for-7 on field goal attempts, including 3 that were over 40 yards with the longest one being a 43-yarder, something Obarski never did in his entire career. Boomer is also 19-of-20 on extra points.
As far as McCarthy, he’s averaging 42.4 yards per punt, which is nearly 3 yards more than Osteen.
Overall, there has been a huge improvement in the kicking game and it’s actually allowed UCF to have confidence if they do need to kick a field goal and not be forced to go for it on 4th down.
Overall
Overall, you have to be happy with the Knights start to the season. A 5-1 record and 2-0 start in conference play is something to be proud of.
Yes, the Knights have showed some inconsistency and some warts on offense, but the last two weeks has restored hope and excitement for the remainder of the season.
UCF finally showed the potential on offense we all thought it had before the season. The talent is finally starting to mesh, JRP is showing what makes him so special, the WR’s are finally eating and the offense is looking more like the #UCFast days.
The fact that the Knights can score 70 points on a conference opponent and the fact that JRP can throw darts, and that UCF can have back to back games with 2 100-yard receivers and that the RB room has 3 capable guys just shows how special this offense can be if it continues down this path.
The Knights have scored 111 points and produced over 1,100 total yards in the last 2 games, both against conference foes.
If UCF can look close to the team they’ve looked like over the past 6 quarters, it should be a very good year.
On the defensive side, the Knights look great. They are stout, don’t allow teams to score and generally are just reliable.
Right now, the main thing we still need to see is how the Knights look when the schedule gets a lot tougher.
To this point, UCF’s FBS opponents have a combined record of 13-17. None of them have more than 3 wins currently.
This upcoming 4-game stretch will basically tell the story of the season and let us know what UCF team is the real one.
It starts with ECU on the road this weekend, and continues with nationally ranked Cincinnati, nationally ranked Tulane in New Orleans and a tough Memphis team on the road.
If UCF can make it through that unscathed, not only will they be Top 25, but they will show they are a real team.
It’s been 3 years since we’ve beat Cincy, it’s been over 3 years since we beat a ranked opponent, and it’s been 3 years since we’ve been to a conference title game.
We control our own destiny right now. Win out and we accomplish all of the above.
If UCF keeps playing like they have the last two games, then that goal should become a reality.
#ChargeOn