No Scott Frost, no problem for UCF in opener vs. UConn

After a 13-0 season under Scott Frost in 2017, the UCF Knights have their sights set on another perfect season. They kicked off the 2018 campaign by dominating UConn in a 56-17 win in Josh Heupel’s head coaching debut.

By the time the final seconds ticked off the clock in the 2018 Peach Bowl, solidifying UCF’s upset win over Auburn, the news had already broken. The Knights’ head coach Scott Frost would not be back in 2018. After leading UCF to a perfect season and a conference title, he’d agreed to become the next head coach at his alma mater, the University of Nebraska, before he even led his team out to play Auburn in the Jan. 1 bowl season matchup.

As Athletic Director Danny White set out to find a replacement, he wanted someone who could coach and recruit obviously, but also another offensive-minded coach who had shown a track record of building dynamic, high-scoring offenses running a similar spread system that fit UCF’s team so well. After Missouri produced the top offense in the SEC and quarterback Drew Lock set the conference record for passing touchdowns (44) in 2017, White tapped Missouri offensive coordinator Josh Heupel to take over the head coaching job at UCF.

The Knights kicked off the Josh Heupel era without skipping a beat, picking up where they left off in 2017, if not turning the offense up a notch. UCF put up over 650 yards of offense, split very evenly between the passing and running game, and put UConn away 56-17 to extend their winning streak to 14 games and start the 2018 season 1-0.

McKenzie Milton led the offense, throwing for 346 yards and five touchdowns on 24-of-32 completions. He added 50 yards on the ground and was the team’s second-leading rusher behind backup quarterback Darriel Mack, Jr. who ran for 70 yards (all on one play, granted). The offense spread the ball all over the field and used many weapons, even before the backups took the field in the second half. Eight different players recorded rushing attempts and nine different players had at least one reception.

Sophomore receiver Tre Nixon led the Knights in receiving with five catches for 101 yards and two touchdowns.  Junior Dredrick Snelson added six catches for 90 yards and all-purpose sophomore Otis Anderson added two touchdowns, one on the ground and one receiving.

UConn is coming off of a 3-9 season so may not have been much of an accurate measuring stick for UCF. It’s obviously impossible to tell too much from one game, but still, it’s all we have to go off at this point and even in one game, there were a couple of things that stood out, one in particular — tempo.

I know Heupel liked to get up to the line and get snaps off quickly but the UCF offense took fast-paced to a new level. They lost the time of possession battle 21:52 to 38:08. But in the third of the game that they had the ball, they ran 34 passing plays and 36 running plays and picked up 31 first downs. 70 plays in under 22 minutes is a pretty ridiculous ratio and the first down numbers in that short of a time frame are even harder to believe.

Defensively, the Knights gave up 27 first downs and 486 yards but capitalized on three turnovers to hold the Huskies to 17 points. There is plenty of work to do on the defensive side of the ball but the offense was every bit what it was in 2017 and UCF is 1-0 start the season.

They’ll host South Carolina State next week followed by a trip to Chapel Hill to play North Carolina on Sept. 15, in Week 3.