Scott Frost, UCF Football’s new head coach, focused heavily on the importance of in-state recruiting and finding the right staff at a press conference on Thursday.
“We’re going to add the right pieces whenever it is possible to add them. There might be an add or two as this semester starts,” Frost said. “Florida is obviously one of the richest recruiting grounds in the country and I think we’d be foolish not to do the majority of our recruiting right here around home.”
Frost met with the media on Thursday to give an update on what he has been doing in his first month on the job as head coach of the UCF football program. The biggest questions posed to Frost surrounded the development of his coaching staff and the strides that the new regime has made in attracting recruits.
“We want kids to want to come here,” Frost said. “To be honest with you, I’m not as concerned if they have four stars or five stars or two stars after their name. I want the right guys, I want the right type of character guys and the right type of athletes.”
The Knights’ new defensive coordinator Erik Chinander also made it clear that the program needs to recruit from within and focus on the vast talent crop that the state of Florida has to offer.
“When we were at Oregon, obviously there is somewhere between 5 and 15 division one recruits per year,” Chinander said. “But now you’ve got everybody in your backyard, so I don’t have to get on planes every night and I don’t have to take red eyes. I drive to Tampa and I stay in town or I drive down to Miami, it’s going to be awesome.”
Chinander is just the latest hire for the Knights who now have most of the staff in place heading into the 2016 season. Frost got the ball rolling early on when he brought on quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco and assistant coach Troy Walters.
However, a good portion of the staff was not revealed until Wednesday when the team officially added Chinander, offensive line coach Greg Austin and director of player development Marcus Castro-Walker. The 41-year-old head coach admitted that the staff selection process has been somewhat slow, but the pacing was necessary to find the right person for each spot.
“I think the players deserve to have the right people coaching them,” Frost said. “I’ve gotten a lot of the people that I wanted to come in here and coach at UCF and everybody has been really excited about it. We’ll finish up the staff whenever I am sure that we have the right people in here.”
While it has been hammered home that the Knights will look a lot different this coming season between the almost entirely-new staff and style of offense, questions still remain regarding players on the current UCF roster and how they can fit into this fresh and fast program.
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“I think there is plenty of talent on this team to make a lot of strides to get where we want to get,” Frost said. “It’s going to be a learning process for everybody and we’ll cater a lot of what we do to the talent that is on the team right now, but I’ve got a lot of confidence in the guys in this building already.”
With National Signing Day less than a month away, UCF fans should look forward to seeing what Frost and his new staff can add to the crop of young talent that the team will bring over from last season.
Photo by Jean Racine
