UCF starting quarterback Blake Bortles had no idea that he was named to the Davey O’Brien or the Maxwell award watch list until someone finally told him.
“I don’t pay much attention, we as a team don’t pay much attention to the outside world,” Bortles said.
The guy Bortles will be handing the ball off to this season, Storm Johnson, was named to the Doak Campbell award watch list. This is the one of the most prestigious awards a college running back can win aside from the Heisman. Storm Johnson’s reaction?
“I don’t even look at that or raise an eyebrow at that, I just focus on the team and what I have to do to make us better,” Johnson said.
It is a sentiment that has been echoed by the Knight’s offensive stars and rippled into a teamwide mentality as they get ready to enter their first season in the American Athletic Conference. They don’t want to talk about the fact that there is a new record book for the conference that they have a chance to set, they don’t want to talk about the personal awards, they don’t want to buy into the whole national spotlight ordeal.
They just want to play football and win games.
The Knight’s offense is returning virtually every starter that touched the ball last season aside from RB Latavius Murray and WR Quincy McDuffie, who already had a deep core of receivers behind him before he left. Coach O’Leary, who is not one to hype up his team and often lamented by predictable play calling, admitted that this offense could be something that a traditional Knight’s offense isn’t normally known for.
“Offensively, I would probably say this is the most explosive offense since I’ve been here…the offense is more explosive in the passing game and we’re always going to be able to run the ball,” O’Leary said in the UCF Media Day press conference.
Still, with these words of praise, Storm Johnson just sees it as an opportunity to get better.
“We just have to improve it. It’s a big task on our hands but at the end of the day we are going to set our goals high and acheive to reach them,” Johnson said in an interview with KnightNews.com.
While the Knights are inevitiably cast into the national spotlight shadow of Florida and Florida State as the season starts, they will get their chance to prove that they are not just a proverbial JV team for the guys that couldn’t play for Florida or Florida State.
With two preseason top ten teams on the schedule, they understand it’s almost a make or break type of deal this season and they are making all the right moves to capitalize on it.
“I always set myself to high standards and expectations not only on the field, but off the field,” Wide Receiver Rannell Hall said.
It’s a refreshing mentality for a sport littered with the Johnny Maziel saga, Riley Cooper’s racial slur, and Aaron Hernandez’s murder investigation.
On Friday, Bortles was named to the Manning Award Watch list, his fourth preseason honor.
I bet he has no idea.
