Greg Lovelady was the baseball coach at UCF for seven seasons and despite having a winning record this last season of 33-26 , Lovelady was officially dismissed as the head coach on May 27th following the Knights only having one NCAA tournament appearance which was in 2017 . UCF’s baseball team may be losing Lovelady and also having some other changes in its roster including the loss of its freshman home run leader, but the Knights still have good prospects as the school is officially moving into the big 12 conference and after placing fourth in the AAC this past season.
UCF athletic director Terry Mohajir thanked Greg Lovelady in a press release following the Knights final game in the AAC saying, “We appreciate all of Greg’s hard work, effort, and commitment over his seven seasons,” Mohajir said. “There’s no doubt he’s a high-character individual. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
During his time in Orlando, Lovelady is 225-149 overall and 83-68 in conference play.
As the Knights charge on to the Big 12 conference on July 12th, the search is on for a new head coach and with such bright prospects including Mohajir excited to pour resources and expecting the Knights to win Big 12 conference baseball titles and compete on a national level as he shared in a press release. The Big 12 conference last season saw six of its nine teams selected to the NCAA tournament which is the highest number of selections for the Big 12, a top conference, since 2017. With Florida being home to the 2nd most Major league baseball players just behind California, a new coach will likely have a large pool of talent to sort through and have a lot of exciting potential that will come with working at UCF.
This story was first reported on by Jason Beede of the Orlando Sentinel and Joe Tillery of Heartland College Sports.
