ORLANDO, Fla. – Upon arriving back in Orlando mere hours after UCF had finished their rout of the Maryland Terrapins, the Knights were moving on to their next stop of the gauntlet; game planning once again for the conference heavyweight Memphis Tigers.
“I don’t think they spent that much emotion after a win like Saturday, because I think in their minds, they were going to win that game. So, we had fun, we enjoyed the win, but guys came back ready to go to work today,” said Head Coach Scott Frost on Monday.
Frost insisted that from the moment the Knights arrived in College Park, they knew it was their game to win. That they wanted it worse, and that nobody let too much emotion get away from them because, after all, this was just another business trip.
“I don’t think our players are buying into people talking about us being good yet,” said Frost. “We’re certainly not going to let them do that. One of the dangers of winning a big game is simply, probably spending so much emotion on that game that you don’t have much left in the tank and that’s one of the things that I appreciated on Saturday.”
Moving on to Memphis from a statement win would be tough if the team hadn’t kept themselves in check, as it can be easy to miss some of the details for the week at hand if you’re living in the past. For a Memphis team that came up in a big way against powerhouse UCLA a few weeks ago, the Knights will need every bit of focus and effort that they have.
it doesn’t hurt that UCF has already had to familiarize themselves with Memphis, and that with a small sample size to work with, the master plan written out before week two is very much still intact.
“Well, we’ve got two more games to watch, so there will be some changes in the gameplan, but I think the majority of what we had prepared for them, we’ll go ahead and go with. Our kids are already familiar with a lot of that stuff. It kind of helps us prepare this week, and hopefully be even better on assignments. We’ll start using that gameplan this week – see what we want to keep, what we want to take out and see which new things we want to add,” said Frost about the team’s preparation moving forward.
Some of the key takeways from Coach Frost to consider moving forward in the practice week:
- Frost is huge on the offensive line’s progress so far this year – one of only three teams in the nation yet to allow a sack.
“I think we’re getting better every day on the o-line. I think they opened up some holes for us in the run game, some of the schemes help, but some of those guys created some of those holes. I think the protection has been really good. McKenzie has had time to set his feet and throw the ball and we’ve made some big plays in the pass game. Our O-Line is going to keep getting better, and I think the first couple of games this year have shown their progress.”
- The secondary is really starting to ramp up the pressure with Mike Hughes and both safeties setting the tone for this defense.
“I think we’re getting some really good leadership in the secondary from our safeties. Trey Neal and Gibby are the shot callers back there and they’re making plays. They both tackled really well, got us into the right defense a lot. Mike Hughes has been a big addition, he’s been a guy we can trust on one corner to make plays and try to lock someone down. I think he’s just a really good football player. I think Brandon Moore will get better every week, he’s doing some really good things – making a few mistakes here and there but he’s really talented and I expect him to get light-years better every time he goes out on the field. I think we have some really good depth back there.”
- The D-Line is DEEP. The rotation of the two-deep was constant against Maryland, and allowed for fresh legs through four strong quarters.
“We rolled a lot of guys in there and got a lot of production from a bunch of guys, I think Jamiyus had a really good day with his sacks, but across the board – Trysten and Tony and Seyvon, AJ and Hazy, all those guys played well. We kept those guys fresh by rolling them in and out. I was really, really pleased with the production we got at the front.”
