Preview: Central Florida 2016
Essentials
WHAT | UCF at Michigan |
---|---|
WHERE | Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor, MI |
WHEN | Noon Eastern September 10th, 2016 |
THE LINE | Michigan –35.5 |
TELEVISION | ABC national Steve Levy/ Brian Griese |
TICKETS | From $29 |
WEATHER | mid-70s, 15 mph wind, scattered thunderstorms |
Overview
UCF last year:
Also:
So they hired Scott Frost, who people are mad at for saying he thought his team was good and for having a mother who may or may not have trash-talked The Wolverine. Sports! (They should be mad at him for killing that kid on his dirtbike.) And they won a game 38-0 against SCSU (not that SCSU).
Anyway they're going to lose by a billion.
Run Offense vs Central Florida
Pittman can play.
This is an absurdly undersized front that should be vulnerable to Michigan packing the box and blowing guys off the ball. UCF runs a 3-4. They've got a 275-pound DE, which is not great Bob for a 3-4, and then the linebacker level runs 230, 228, 217, 213. This is a defense with at least six DB-sized players on the field at all times and two DTs tops. This is not ideal against anyone, let alone Jim Harbaugh's Michigan.
There is a person of interest. That would be junior DT Jamiyus Pittman, who led the team in TFLs with 7 and sacks with 4.5. Those are actually damn good numbers for a 300-pound 3-4 NT surrounded by nonentities. Pittman was an Ole Miss commit for a time and was better-ranked than the vast majority of the recruits in this year's Rutgers class, so he's got Power 5 ability.
The rest of the front seven consists of nondescript recruits performing nondescriptly. All advanced stats had the UCF rush defense in the triple digits and a good outing (2.7 YPA) against SCSU (not that SCSU) ain't going to change opinions.
Michigan will mash these gentlemen.
KEY MATCHUP: CHRIS EVANS versus EXPECTATIONS.
[Hit THE JUMP for a PICTURE OF SOMEBODY'S GRAVE because YOU CAN'T EVEN GOOGLE SOME OF THESE PEOPLE]
Pass Offense vs Central Florida
oh my god what happened when they played Stanford I don't even want to look
This will be an opportunity to see Michigan's receivers match up against a legit corner. Shaquill Griffin could have gone a lot of places but chose UCF so he could stick around with his brother, and last year he picked up 15 PBUs as a big fish in a little pond. He's on NFL radars—not high on them, but on them—and is the best bet for a Knight to go in the upcoming draft. Ace:
I was especially impressed with Shaquill Griffin, who had a second-half interception and made two first-half PBUs on deep shots when he was left on an island on zero blitzes. He's got excellent size and the plays he made on the ball will translate against any competition
He'll be a challenge for whoever draws him.
It does not figure to be much of a challenge for Michigan's offensive line and Wilton Speight's pocket awareness. UCF was 118th in adjusted sack rate a year ago and lost three defensive linemen, though not the one guy who picked up some sacks. That would be Pittman, naturally. If UCF gets through it'll be on a blitz pickup that gets busted.
This will be another shooting gallery for Speight; hopefully he can fit it in some tighter windows against Griffin and some of UCF's other athletic DBs while avoiding the Period Of Suck to start the game.
KEY MATCHUP: GRANT NEWSOME versus A PLIABLE OPPONENT AGAINST WHOM HE CAN CONTINUE GETTING HIS FEET WET.
Run Defense vs Central Florida
SLIGHTLY MISSPELLED PREVIEW
This could be pretty interesting. Scott Frost has brought a wide open spread offense to Orlando and along with Colorado this is going to be as good a proxy for Ohio State as Michigan plays this year. This is "not at all good at all," but we'll get a glimpse into Michigan's general approach against a spread to run offense run by a guy who knows what he's doing. Brown's not going to pull all the evil little vials out of the drawer but the framework is the framework.
Right, UCF. They rushed for 3.7 yards a carry against SCSU (not that SCSU). So maybe not that interesting. Also starting right guard Chavis Dickey managed a –7.0 per Pro Football Focus. That means he was as bad against SCSU as Ryan Glasgow was good against Hawaii. Also they had two other starting linemen and their-most-used tight end end that game with significantly negative grades. So definitely not that interesting.
Quarterback Justin Holman picked up a positive rush grade and had 49 yards on 9 carries; Ace thought he was fast in a straight line and liable to fall over if asked to change direction. The previous regime didn't think much of his ability to move: he had 140 rushing yards last year, and in 2014 he managed to rush 112 times for 189 yards. Sacks, yes. I be like dang.
UCF's running backs are just guys.
Michigan's defensive line will crush this OL, which is coming off a struggle against a very bad I-AA team, even without Taco Charlton and Bryan Mone. This game will test their soundness against zone read stuff and that may break UCF a solid run or three—Rashan Gary got lost on a zone read against Hawaii—but if Michigan doesn't get fooled on any particular play UCF will be picking their teeth off the turf and hoping the ones they stick back in their mouth aren't Dickey's. That might be contagious.
KEY MATCHUP: IT'S EARLY YET versus DON BROWN's WACKY SCHEMES. UCF will test Michigan's assignments.
Pass Defense vs Central Florida
this isn't going to go well
Holman is coming off a season where he completed 50% of his passes for 5.6 YPA, 7 TDs, and 14 INTs. Think Steven Threet with twice the interception rate. Yeah.
Ace packed it in after one half of charting because I told him to, and because further exposure to Holman's passing may qualify as an OSHA violation:
Reminder: this happened against FCS competition.
Opponent DO CA MA IN BR TA BA PR SCR DSR South Carolina State 0 3 (1) 1 5** (2) 2** 4 1 3 1 25% That might be the worst half I've seen from a passing perspective, especially given the level of competition. Holman didn't get a lot of help from his O-line, but he exacerbated that by holding onto the ball too long in the pocket, and on a couple occasions he sensed pressure that wasn't there and scrambled for minimal gains.
That is a suboptimal start, and then the UCF offensive line gave up three sacks to SCSU (not that SCSU). They were actually all right last year—48th in adjusted sack rate—at protecting their terrible, terrible quarterback, for what little that was worth. They kept rotating OL and were utterly awful in all other stats so that was probably an artifact of throwing the vast majority of their passes at or near the line of scrimmage. Yes, this brings up many questions about the completion percentage. No, I cannot answer them.
UCF's wide receiver corps might be decent or better. They get back a couple now-juniors. One of them, Tristan Payton, is a former four star who tackles peeping toms when not catching just half his targets probably through no fault of his own. They added Dredrick Snelson, a 3/4 star borderline guy who was briefly on Michigan recruitniks' radars, and Tre'Quan Smith got 90 targets a year ago. He caught 55% of them, again probably through no fault of his own. For a Group of Five team, let alone a direly abject one, there's a lot of athletic talent out there.
It would be a major upset if this mattered one iota.
KEY MATCHUP: JUSTIN HOLMAN versus NOT IN THE FACE. Sorry buddy but it's going in the face.
Special Teams
UCF sophomore kicker Matt Wright is 17/21 in his career and 7 of 9 from beyond 40, so he'll be a good bet to ruin a shutout.
KEY MATCHUP: PUNTING versus NAH
Intangibles
Cheap Thrills
Worry if...
- Kyle Kalis misses some assignments, because we want week one to be real.
- Wilton Speight doesn't build on his week one performance by compressing his crappy period into less than one play.
- This is competitive at all.
Cackle with knowing glee if...
- Just about anything happens
- Peppers gets a returnable punt or four
- They pull out the Kaiju package against this front seven
Fear/Paranoia Level: 1 (Baseline 5; -1 for OL Struggles Against Not That SCSU, –1 for QB Seems To Be Christian Hackenberg Except Inaccurate, –1 for 0-12, –1 for Dang Dickey, –1 for Front Seven Represents The Lollipop Guild, +1 for History That Has Nothing To Do With This Team Or Program That We Will Nonetheless Honor By Writing An Actual Preview)
Desperate need to win level: 10 (Baseline 5; +1 for What Is This, The Hoke Era?, +1 for Bigger Point Spread Upsets Than The Horror Are Bad, Mmkay, +1 for I Guess We Should Get Revenge On Scott Frost For Being A Normal Person Acting Normally, +1 for Changing Their Name From "Citronauts" Is A Sin That Must Be Punished Forever, +1 for SERIOUSLY. CITRONAUTS.)
Loss will cause me to... wake up on August 31st, 2007, saying "I had the strangest dream…"
Win will cause me to... scour every bit of film looking for hints as to Michigan's national title viability.
The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:
A close, hard-fought contest for the first 30 seconds.
Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:
- Evans goes over 100 yards again, in the first half.
- UCF takes 22 minutes to get a first down.
- Michigan, 47-0
September 10th, 2016 at 12:21 AM ^
September 13th, 2016 at 5:30 PM ^
Oh my.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:06 PM ^
September 9th, 2016 at 2:19 PM ^
FWIW, I think the Freep grudge is stupid. I've called that and the Frost hatred out on here.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:33 PM ^
"intangibles" pictures are the best I can remember.
Also, does anybody really remember the Frost thing when it happened? I was in my primetime Michigan days when that went down and I just don't remember it. I remember kind of fearing that it would be a split after they blew out Tennesee and the Tom Osborne love but not the Frost comments.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:42 PM ^
Oh yeah. Not gonna lie, I'm one of the grudge holders and I always will be.
After the Rose Bowl, Brian Griese made his case that Michigan should be National Champions after coming in #1 and holding wide-open Wash State well below their offensive average for the year. "I don't know what else we can do", he said after winning the game. He talked up Michigan, but never said a word about Nebraska.
After his win, Scott Frost trashed Michigan loudly and continually. He wasn't talking up Nebraska, he was blasting Michigan. He went on a campaign against Michigan in various media outlets.
It turned out to be effective. Frost was not the only voice, but he was the loudest, most negative voice. He was the spokesman for the "Michigan does not deserve to be in the conversation for the NC" crowd.
Lloyd being Lloyd, was too gentlemanly to respond in kind.
If the Fulmer rumors are true (that he voted us all the way down at #4 to punish us for Wooodson winning the Heisman over Manning), then it may not have mattered. Frost was just rubbing salt in the wounds. But if he swayed even one vote, that was all it took to split the vote.
He wasn't just a guy confidently talking up his own team, he was a guy bad-mouthing his opposition while they took the high road. Very un-Nebraska IMO.
Whatever. He was free to say what he wanted, and I'm free to remember what he said and not just drop it because it was a while ago.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:59 PM ^
wierd. I just don't remember any of that. I remember the Grieise statements, the Fulmer rumors, the Osborne talk. I just don't remember anything about Frost.
September 9th, 2016 at 4:05 PM ^
I remember them vividly. I was a sophmore in college. Frost was a real asshole. As was Tom Osborne, with his fake "retirement" that prompted the going-away gift from the coaches.
September 9th, 2016 at 4:17 PM ^
Osborne-era Nebraska was anything BUT classy. Osborne was just another member of the "boys will be boys" jackass coaches' club that included Gary Barnett and Bobby Bowden. These guys basically took 1990s college football to the despicable level the NFL is at now, where even blatant criminal activity was OK as long as the players won games. He is on record defending one of his players because he thinks dragging a woman down a staircase is no big deal. The state later elected Osborne to Congress. You can't make this stuff up.
One reason why I'm not so worked up about Frost is that his antics were downright tame compared to the shit going on in Osborne's stinkhouse.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^
This feels like a posbang thread.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:40 PM ^
I'm looking forward to this game and another opportunity to kill a spread offense.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^
but all it made me think was, "Man, I need someone who will see me chasing some dude and will unquestiongly join the persuit and tackle the guy."
September 9th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^
but will the weather hold up?
September 9th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^
Phillips, according to several sources was asleep in his Lincoln apartment when he was awakened by a phone call. The person on the other end of the line informed Phillips that his former girlfriend, Kate McEwen, was inside the apartment of sophomore QB Scott Frost.
In a fury, Phillips stormed to Frost's apartment, scaled the wall to his third-floor balcony, entered and dragged his ex-girlfriend by her hair down three flights of stairs.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:48 PM ^
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September 9th, 2016 at 1:43 PM ^
University of Central Florida is the largest university in the United States by undergraduate and total student enrollment.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:45 PM ^
That's a lot of people that are going to be really sad at 3:30 PM tomorrow.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:50 PM ^
I'd suspect that most of them are transplant UF / FSU fans, with maybe a few Miami fans sprinkled in.
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September 9th, 2016 at 1:43 PM ^
I am convinced we get a safety this game in addition to our 7 TDs.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:45 PM ^
I'm just guessing that maybe Scott Frost looks like the guy from Breaking Bad, last season, who shot the kid on his motorbike before Walt and Jessie could stop him.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:46 PM ^
You are correct, Sir.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:18 PM ^
That was the joke, and holy crap if I can't "unsee" that now that Brian mentioned it.
September 9th, 2016 at 8:38 PM ^
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September 9th, 2016 at 3:14 PM ^
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September 9th, 2016 at 5:27 PM ^
I jumped from that line right to the comments just to see if that's what was referenced. The time it took for me to process the progression of logic from "Scott Frost killed a kid on a dirt bike" to "Frost looks like Todd" might be longer than I'd like to admit.
Good job, Lance. I mean, Landry.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:46 PM ^
Scott Frost is Brad Pitt's lesser known, middle aged brother.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:46 PM ^
Arm Pitt.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:48 PM ^
1997:
It's still real to me, dammit. Melt Frost.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:50 PM ^
They've got a 275-pound DE, which is not great Bob for a 3-4
flashbacks to our RichRod defense. I'm not sure our DEs were even that big.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:02 PM ^
yeah. that size on their defensive front won't go well.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:59 PM ^
I would like to add +1 to the DNTWL for Barely 20 Years At FBS Level And Not Even Ten Years Removed From The Sun Belt Conference Also Won Zero Games Last Year But Still Obnoxiously Campaigning For Big 12 Membership As If They Deserve To Be Power Five, Like Rodney Dangerfield In Caddyshack Except Not Rich Or Funny.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:00 PM ^
September 9th, 2016 at 2:11 PM ^
So excited for more football!
September 9th, 2016 at 2:14 PM ^
And raise you cats wearing watermelons.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:19 PM ^
I read the Diary with his comments yesterday and thought what he said was exactly what we'd love a QB to say on our behalf. The hate should be directed at Fulmer and the coaches who voted us not in the top 2. He was fighting for his team. Not sure what's so bad about that.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:22 PM ^
I assume their fight song used to be Black Sabbath's "Supernaut" except Citronaut instead
September 9th, 2016 at 5:39 PM ^
Fun fact: "Supernaut" references "a golden rainbow's end." I can't think of any songs that talk about a "nittany buffalo's demise," though.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:35 PM ^
For those interested, "CO C 345 MG BN 90 DIV" means Company C, 345th Machine Gun Battalion, [180th Infantry Brigade,] 90th Division.
The 90th was deployed in the First World War, in 1918 and 1919 in France and Germany. Comprised of men from Texas and Oklahoma, they relieved the 1st Division (the first Americans deployed in the war) and saw a lot of action.
The machine guns of the 345th get a page to themselves at one point in the history of the division, and the casualty lists bear that out. November 2, 1918 was a particularly hard day in this guy's life. No doubt he never forgot it...
Anyhow, a proud old vet!
September 9th, 2016 at 5:55 PM ^
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September 9th, 2016 at 2:28 PM ^
September 9th, 2016 at 2:58 PM ^
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September 9th, 2016 at 8:34 PM ^
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September 9th, 2016 at 2:36 PM ^
September 9th, 2016 at 4:08 PM ^
September 9th, 2016 at 2:42 PM ^
Kinda of crazy they were 12-1 3 seasons ago with a win in the Fiesta over Baylor.
BTW You can still buy Citronaut gear:
September 9th, 2016 at 2:49 PM ^
I thought we killed Otto in the 2013 Final Four.
This must be old.
September 9th, 2016 at 2:53 PM ^
Thanks Ace
September 9th, 2016 at 3:05 PM ^
Most importantly, how will the PA announcer announce attendance, since they won't be able to say "Thank you for being a part of the largest crowd watching a football game in America today"? My bet is they completely ignore the madness that is the game at Bristol Motor Speedway and announce as usual.
September 9th, 2016 at 3:11 PM ^
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