The UCF football team came out with a bag full of tricks and put on a show as it took the field on Saturday at the Bounce House in front of a reduced crowd.
The spring game served as the final practice for the Knights out of their 15 sessions. Three scrimmage practices were available to the public prior to Saturday’s game.
Players and coaches were split across to two teams during the matchup — Black versus White.
The exhibition included four quarters of football but capped off at 12 minutes apiece instead of the typical 15 minutes. In the second half, there was a continuous clock.
The Black team defeated the White team 34-17 behind 406 yards of total offense, and after the game, UCF head football coach Gus Malzahn said he was proud of the team for an outstanding spring.
“We’ve challenged them, we’ve put it on them physically, mentally and we practice four days a week for four straight weeks and today we got after it,” Malzahn said. “Today, it was great, guys were flying around, we got a chance to get everybody to play, I think they played hard, I think they played for each other.”
Sophomore quarterback Dillion Gabriel had a solid showing for the Black team, completing 17 of his 22 passes for 191 yards and two scores.
When asked about Gabriel’s progression throughout spring practice, Malzahn was quick to highlight his skill set and poise.
“Dillion has had an outstanding spring,” the first-year head coach said. “His accuracy really stands out to me, got great command of the offense, he is really special when things break down with his decision-making, his accuracy, he really had an outstanding spring.”
The Black team did pull into their bag of tricks a few times throughout the course of the spring game. Sophomore wide receiver Ryan O’Keefe completed a pass to Gabriel for a 22-yard catch and run for one of the most exciting plays of the day.
“That was just kind of a deal between him and O’Keefe, we had a base play and they have a read on it and they’re really good together and on the same page,” Malzhan said about the call. “That was really a wild play standing behind watching it.”
O’Keefe added he used to play quarterback in high school and was excited about the opportunity when talking to Gabriel.
“We’re going to switch,” he said. “I’m going to do what you do every day and you’re going to do what I do every day. It was just something fun to do. Just a twist.”
When Gabriel was asked about the play, he admitted to enjoying the trickery.
“Definitely new to me,” he said. “It was fun, I would enjoy catching the ball a couple of times.”
On the topic of versatility, Gabriel was asked about freshman quarterback R.J Harvey who played quarterback in high school before coming to UCF.
“I don’t know if I could transition like that but he made it real easy,” he said. “Obviously, it showed today, he’s able to push for extra yards and likewise able to catch the ball. Also knowing to play quarterback he knows everything that’s going on so it kind of helps when he’s out there.”
Harvey had 63 total yards from scrimmage and scored three times in the contest.
O’Keefe also stood out for the Knights accumulating six grabs for 83 yards and a touchdown. When asked about the leading receiver of the day Gabriel mentioned O’Keefe has made the most of his opportunities dating back to even last year.
“Ryan made a bunch of strides last year, put himself in a good position to get a lot of experience and now it’s just clicking for him. I think that’s how it goes, getting that experience being able to build on it and being able to take over.”
O’Keefe seems to be in agreement with his quarterback and sees progression within the duo’s chemistry.
“I think it’s been a big jump from last year to this year,” said O’Keefe. “Me and Dillion have been doing extra throwing sessions, we’ve been doing our own stuff, it’s been exciting to build chemistry with him because I feel like he trusts me more and that chemistry is going to show during the season.”
O’Keefe also believes Mazhan’s new offensive scheme will allow him to showcase his elusiveness a bit more in different facets of the passing game.
“I feel like last year we did a lot of shots, a lot of us were used as deep threats but now this offense shows we can make plays short and turn them into long gains.”
UCF’s running back room helped add value to O’Keefe’s statement.
Freshman running back Johnny Richardson erupted for 138 scrimmage yards in both the rushing and receiving game. The aforementioned Harvey had an impressive performance as well.
“Early on I could tell our running backs were a little bit nervous, we weren’t patient, we were running into the back of guys but as the game went on all the guys kind of slowed down,” Malzhan said.
Overall, he said everyone did a good job and the game was allowed them to gather information on the Knights’ running back room.
The shortage of big plays did not come to a halt after the first half. Redshirt junior defensive lineman Kalia Davis — who opted out in 2020 — lined up behind center Matt Lee and received a direct snap which picked up a first down.
Davis joked about the coaching staff knowing about his history as a running back in his past.
“I played as a running back in high school too and coach wanted to see if I can catch a snap and run it,” Davis said. “My athleticism kicked in and I found the hole, got the first down. It was cool though”
“I was running my feet through contact,” he said. “Hopefully they don’t give up on me, I’ll score next time.”
Redshirt defensive lineman Anthony Montalvo made his presence felt by racking up 2.5 sacks on the day. Montalvo’s second sack on freshman quarterback Gaston Moore served as the final play of the game.
Freshman defensive back Quadric Bullard led the charge amongst all Knights eight total tackles.
Sophomore linebacker Tatum Bethune was also a standout defender on Travis Williams’ defensive unit.
“I would say the defensive side of practice is based off physicality. That’s really what we do, we start off practice by hitting and it’s just physicality and speed and running to the ball,” he said after the spring game. “That’s really what coach T-Will expressed so that’s what we do.”
Bethune stated that the defense has made strides under their new defensive coordinator. Bethune revealed Williams always has a smile on his face and is full of energy and ready to work whenever the Knights are on the practice field.
“I feel like I’m playing football with a brother, but he’s really coaching me so it’s great.”
Bethune also expressed the team’s admiration of having a spring game this season.
“Today was great, it was fun,” Bethune said. “You know, we didn’t get to have a spring [game] last year so it was a great feeling just to go out there against other teammates and talk with each other. It’s a life experience. It was great.”
Overall, the Black and Gold are happy with their outlook on spring practice and should feel comfortable heading into their week off.
“We’re going to take a couple days off, our staff, we got guys that need to move here, matter of fact I may get out of here for a day or two and then hit the ground running,” Malzhan said. “There’s a lot of excitement, our staff we’re taking off, they’re not taking off recruiting, and we will be back in a short period of time.”
Malzahn said it was also great to play in front of a crowd, and those in attendance had a promote UCF and the brand of their players, each student athlete that suited up in the Spring Game had their Twitter handle embedded on the back of their jerseys.
“We’ve been saying we think the future of College Football is really here and if you look at it we have 322,000 living alumni and the average age is 36, they’re all on social media,” Malzahn said.
He said with 72,000 students and essentially all of them on social media, this is how the team is working toward the new age of personal branding.
“We’re going to brace it within the NCAA rules,” Malzahn said. “That’s who we are and that’s who we’re going to be. The new age of College Football — what’s it going to look like? We’re going to be a team that’s going to be different and that program that’s looking ahead and being prepared for it.”
