UCF news thread

iceeater1969

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There starting o line has 3 super seniors and 2 sr(rs junior)s. 2 are transfers.

Could be they are just OK and ol was thin before transfers.
 

yeti92

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UCF has a huge enrollment with lots of funky majors in a desirable location. These are things coaches like. Might be hard to buy him out of there.
His current buyout if we were to hire him before the end of the 2022 season is $5mil and drops to $3mil once the season ends. We paid $2.5mil to buyout Geoff, we can afford to buyout Gus.

Not fun stat of the day - with inflation, $2.5 mil in 2018 is almost exactly $3mil today.
 
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Vespidae

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His current buyout if we were to hire him before the end of the 2022 season is $5mil and drops to $3mil once the season ends. We paid $2.5mil to buyout Geoff, we can afford to buyout Gus.

Not fun stat of the day - with inflation, $2.5 mil in 2018 is almost exactly $3mil today.
I don't see Gus leaving UCF ever. He has $20M and change from Auburn, a great lifestyle in Orlando, a college with an attractive recruiting base and lots of majors. I don't see him trading that for competing and struggling against UGA for talent, resources, etc. There's no upside.
 

orientalnc

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I don't see Gus leaving UCF ever. He has $20M and change from Auburn, a great lifestyle in Orlando, a college with an attractive recruiting base and lots of majors. I don't see him trading that for competing and struggling against UGA for talent, resources, etc. There's no upside.
You are probably right, but UCF is always going to be 4th in the minds and hearts of fans in Florida. My niece is a UCF grad and cheers for Miami. Commuter schools struggle to build fan bases. See Ga State and UAB.

If we don't keep Collins there will be good coaches interested in coming to Tech. Gus might be one of them.
 

Vespidae

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You are probably right, but UCF is always going to be 4th in the minds and hearts of fans in Florida. My niece is a UCF grad and cheers for Miami. Commuter schools struggle to build fan bases. See Ga State and UAB.

If we don't keep Collins there will be good coaches interested in coming to Tech. Gus might be one of them.

I agree about the status of UCF, but there is no upside for Gus. Besides, what TStan sold everyone on was that Tech would be a feeder to the NFL for those that chose that route. Gus was fired from Auburn for the very reason that AU wasn't a feeder and it killed recruiting. Hiring Gus at Tech would be a complete repudiation of that strategy. I don't see it.
 

Augusta_Jacket

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I agree about the status of UCF, but there is no upside for Gus. Besides, what TStan sold everyone on was that Tech would be a feeder to the NFL for those that chose that route. Gus was fired from Auburn for the very reason that AU wasn't a feeder and it killed recruiting. Hiring Gus at Tech would be a complete repudiation of that strategy. I don't see it.

Nebraska, South Florida, Arizona, Stanford, Colorado, Syracuse and Texas are likely to have coaching vacancies this year. It is entirely possible FSU, WVU, and Louisville will as well. Since GT is not a "destination job" for most coaches, that means we will be low in the picking order for available talent, as all of these schools are either better destinations with more money, or more likely to have lower expectations while a new coach finds his way. I'm not sure this is the best year to be coach searching.
 

slugboy

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I think the time to hire Malzahn was before UCF hired him. An older coach wants to know that he'll be left alone to do his job and get decent support to do his job and he'll be able to go to bowls and make his fans happy. Malzahn will get that at UCF. We aren't going to offer him less hassles than he has at UCF.

From his point of view, he just got fired from Auburn after being a successful coach, mainly for the sin of not beating the number one team in the country enough. He went bowling every year, played in one BCS championship, and had people looking over his shoulder telling him how to do his job. His worst record was 6-4. He'll probably have the same kind of record at UCF and he can stay until he retires and he'll get paid well and get the assistant coaches he wants and he can run a "system" offense without fans complaining and he'll have fans in the stands and at bowl games.

The only reason to come to Tech is to prove something, and Malzahn has nothing to prove. He'd want at least a 7-year contract--probably longer--and we look like we're about to show 7 years doesn't mean 7 years.

If I were Malzahn, I might use the upcoming Nebraska opening to get a contract extension, but I'm not even leaving UCF for Nebraska, and they're a top 20 (at least) revenue team.

If you'd still like to fantasize about him coming here, feel free to ignore this post.
 

Vespidae

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Nebraska, South Florida, Arizona, Stanford, Colorado, Syracuse and Texas are likely to have coaching vacancies this year. It is entirely possible FSU, WVU, and Louisville will as well. Since GT is not a "destination job" for most coaches, that means we will be low in the picking order for available talent, as all of these schools are either better destinations with more money, or more likely to have lower expectations while a new coach finds his way. I'm not sure this is the best year to be coach searching.

I agree. This is another reason why I think Chip Long as hired.
 

Billygoat91

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I agree about the status of UCF, but there is no upside for Gus. Besides, what TStan sold everyone on was that Tech would be a feeder to the NFL for those that chose that route. Gus was fired from Auburn for the very reason that AU wasn't a feeder and it killed recruiting. Hiring Gus at Tech would be a complete repudiation of that strategy. I don't see it.
If we are looking for a new coach, TStan's opinion won't matter because he will not be here anymore. Unless that strategy comes from somewhere else within GT, we will likely be looking at any strategy possible. I actually have pity on all AD's and current/future coaches right now in college football. The landscape is changing so quickly that it has to be extremely difficult to navigate.

I always find myself thinking that we had it all backwards. A CGC style head coach should have been our hire in 2007/2008 when we weren't competing against NIL/blatant buying of players, while a schematic advantage (CPJ) should have been the hire we made with the really uneven playing field right now. Now the fanbase has soured on schematic advantage. We seem to be a little behind the 8-ball for an innovative bunch. Hindsight is 20/20 though
 

Techster

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I agree. This is another reason why I think Chip Long as hired.

The problem with that line of thought is what if Long's offense falters? So you fire a guy (CGC) but you can't hire his de facto "replacement" because the fans and donors don't want an assistant who failed at GT and is tied to the coach that just got fired.

I think Long was hired because he was the best OC available to GT at the time. EVERYONE knows CGC is on the hot seat and will get fired if he doesn't go bowling this year, and no OC is leaving their job to come to GT without a multi year contract. IMO, Long was hired because he was the best OC willing to come to GT under the current dark cloud of uncertainty...and that's it.
 

Vespidae

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I think the time to hire Malzahn was before UCF hired him. An older coach wants to know that he'll be left alone to do his job and get decent support to do his job and he'll be able to go to bowls and make his fans happy. Malzahn will get that at UCF. We aren't going to offer him less hassles than he has at UCF.

From his point of view, he just got fired from Auburn after being a successful coach, mainly for the sin of not beating the number one team in the country enough. He went bowling every year, played in one BCS championship, and had people looking over his shoulder telling him how to do his job. His worst record was 6-4. He'll probably have the same kind of record at UCF and he can stay until he retires and he'll get paid well and get the assistant coaches he wants and he can run a "system" offense without fans complaining and he'll have fans in the stands and at bowl games.

The only reason to come to Tech is to prove something, and Malzahn has nothing to prove. He'd want at least a 7-year contract--probably longer--and we look like we're about to show 7 years doesn't mean 7 years.

If I were Malzahn, I might use the upcoming Nebraska opening to get a contract extension, but I'm not even leaving UCF for Nebraska, and they're a top 20 (at least) revenue team.

If you'd still like to fantasize about him coming here, feel free to ignore this post.
Gus was not particularly well-liked at Auburn. On the charisma scale, he's about a 1. He had, as I recall, a decent win rate against Alabama at 3-5. Arkansas was interested in hiring him (he's from there), but I don't think Gus was the least bit interested in going back.

There's no mystery as to why Gus was fired. He committed two cardinal sins. The first was the offense. His offense was not attractive to players who ultimately wanted to be in the NFL. The NFL told him that, players told him that, recruiters told him that. He didn't want to hear it. Recruiting tanked. And on top of that, Gus had a zero interest in developing players. You either had the talent to work in his offense, or you didn't. (These two are the major reasons why Gus was moved out.)

The defining moment for Gus was being asked about how the team did in 2020 when they went 6-4 and he quipped, pretty good. THAT is what ultimately got him fired as the AD declared, "At Auburn, we compete for championships. Not to be pretty good." He was fired the day after his quote hit the papers.

The other, unmentioned reason for his ouster was downtown Auburn. As he lost the fanbase, fewer people were shopping downtown which LIVES for sales during the football season. And Auburn thrives on the income. Without fans coming and spending, the whole eco-system just goes down the toilet. This was well-known before Covid and Covid, and the issues that year raised, just reached a boiling point to push him out.

Ironically, CPJ was offered the AU job before Gus got it.
 

Vespidae

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The problem with that line of thought is what if Long's offense falters? So you fire a guy (CGC) but you can't hire his de facto "replacement" because the fans and donors don't want an assistant who failed at GT and is tied to the coach that just got fired.

I think Long was hired because he was the best OC available to GT at the time. EVERYONE knows CGC is on the hot seat and will get fired if he doesn't go bowling this year, and no OC is leaving their job to come to GT without a multi year contract. IMO, Long was hired because he was the best OC willing to come to GT under the current dark cloud of uncertainty...and that's it.
Just remember who TStan's mentor is ... Homer Rice. And Homer used to say, "Don't fire anyone until you have the replacement in sight." Tech cannot go on a coaching shopping spree with all the other teams also shopping. It's a guy either on staff now or someone they are already talking to.
 

Augusta_Jacket

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I agree. This is another reason why I think Chip Long as hired.

The problem with that line of thought is what if Long's offense falters? So you fire a guy (CGC) but you can't hire his de facto "replacement" because the fans and donors don't want an assistant who failed at GT and is tied to the coach that just got fired.

I think Long was hired because he was the best OC available to GT at the time. EVERYONE knows CGC is on the hot seat and will get fired if he doesn't go bowling this year, and no OC is leaving their job to come to GT without a multi year contract. IMO, Long was hired because he was the best OC willing to come to GT under the current dark cloud of uncertainty...and that's it.

IMO, Chip Long will not be the HC next year if CGC is fired. First, if TStan survives to make the next coaching hire, he is not going to stake his career on anyone tied to the CGC regime. He will clean house and start over. If TStan doesn't survive the 2022 football season, there is almost no way the new AD hires anyone attached to the current regime as HC to replace CGC. I don't see any way any assistant on staff now is our HC in 2023.
 
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