Expectations Game 2016: UCF Knights

Zero.

Zilch.

Nada.

Nil.

That is the number of wins for the UCF Knights football team in 2015. Out of 128 teams in FBS, the Knights were one of two schools completely shut out of the win column last year. The other? Kansas. And unless you’re talking about Gayle Sayers you never want to be compared to Kansas football.

The lack of wins was such a joke a bar in Orlando started a promotion with free beer during Knights games until UCF won.

@espn Come say hey while you're in town! #FreeBeer pic.twitter.com/qVScUSxyk8

— The Basement Orlando (@BasementOrlando) November 16, 2015

The Knights’ woeful season came on the heels of a nine-win campaign, and just two years after going 12-1 including a win in the Fiesta Bowl. It also marked the end of George O’Leary as both head coach and interim Athletic Director.

But instead of running away like Monty Python’s Knights of the Round Table, these Knights continued their quest for the Holy Grail by making a big splash-hire of Oregon offensive coordinator Scott Frost. The Nebraska-option quarterback turned high-horse power OC promises to usher in a new era of football in Orlando.

The question, at least for 2016, is does Frost have the horses to improve UCF and give “The Basement” a reason to start charging for beer again during games?

Let’s start by assuming there’s no way UCF is going to go winless again this season. No one has laid consecutive goose eggs since 2005, when Florida International ended its third straight season without a win. In fact, there’s a pretty good bet UCF will get of the schneid in Week 1 when the Knights take on South Carolina State of the FCS. Then again, not a lot of people thought UCF would lose its opener to Florida International last year… but we digress.

Any conversation about UCF in 2016 is going to start and end with the offense. Scott Frost didn’t come to Orlando to resurrect the wishbone. In his introductory news conference Frost said he’ll “bring the whole playbook” from Oregon.

Sounds good, right? After all, Oregon has been one of the top-rated offenses for a while now. But what Frost doesn’t have at UCF is a quarterback that fits the system. There’s no Marcus Mariota. There’s not even a Vernon Adams.

What he has is Justin Holman, the Knights starter from a year ago. He has shown flashes of brilliance with his arm. Last year, however, he threw twice as many interceptions as touchdowns. Two other knocks on Holman? He is a senior, and that’s a whole lot of offense to learn and execute in one season. Holman also isn’t a great runner, another hallmark of Frost’s Oregon signal callers.

Behind Holman is a bunch of quarterbacks who have barely played a down. Among them is wide-receiver-turned-quarterback Nick Patti. Ask Houston fans how experiments like that turn out with a great offensive head coach.

The other thing Frost must deal with on offense is youth and inexperience. UCF was the third-youngest team in college football in 2015. That will be either a blessing or a curse for Frost; the Knights top three running backs and just about everyone who caught a pass in 2015 are back. On the other hand a lot of those players don’t know what it’s like to win a college football game. How quickly Frost and his coaching staff are able to put in their game plan and change the mindset in Orlando will be the biggest keys to this transition.

Granted, with the Frost hire most the attention is on the Knights’ offense. But UCF will have to play some defense. As you would expect from an 0-12 team, defense was a bit of a problem last season. How big? The Knights were ranked 113^th (out of 128) in total defense and gave up 44 points per game. Ouch.

The man in charge of putting a tourniquet on that wound is Erik Chinader, who came with Frost from Eugene as the Ducks’ linebackers coach. He promises an up-tempo, attacking defense to match what the offense brings to the table.  Yeah, we’ll see about that. The defensive line and linebackers are both very green – although one name to watch for Jamiyus Pittman.

The secondary, however, brings back a lot of experience – more so than any unit on the entire team. Again, we’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing, but senior Shaquill Griffin did have two interceptions and 13 pass breakups last season. But if the Knights don’t develop a pass rush it won’t matter how much experience the secondary has because the talented AAC quarterbacks will have time to pick them apart.

UCF has a proven winner in Scott Frost. He won a national championship as a quarterback, coached a Heisman Trophy winner, and led one of the most prolific offenses in college football. There is similar buzz surrounding the hiring of Frost as there was with Tom Herman at Houston.

Frost is clearly getting in the middle of a much different situation, but he’ll do a good job at UCF. How good in 2016? Let’s start by taking it one win at a time.