No more spring football practices for the UCF Football Knights as they completed their training on campus Wednesday morning. The team and coaches seeing a lot more cohesion and progression compared to a year ago when Scott Frost was first taking over.
All that hard work to be tested on Saturday in the team’s spring contest.
“I’m just please with the progress,” Frost said Wednesday afternoon. “I knew this wasn’t going to be an overnight rebuild—we took a big step last year and I think we are continuing to move in the right direction.”
The America defensive player of the year Shaquem Griffin happy with the way the younger guys have stepped into their new roles.
“This whole spring the point was to get better than what we were last year and I think as a team we really did,” Griffin explained. “We had high expectations when it comes to learning the plays and executing everything.”
“I thought the offense was tremendous this spring. They came off the ball better, they fought,” Defensive Coordinator Erik Chinander said of spring practices. “For the defense I think you saw is that they waited. They waited until the offense poked the bear a little bit and then they really attacked. I just need to see them attack from first whistle to the last snap.”
For the game--the team plans to put the number one’s on defense up against the number one’s on offense for the first half before mixing in other units.
“We’re starting to get some continuity with the one defense with some new guys –starting to get some better continuity with the one offense and guys getting used to playing together and I kinda want to keep that going,” Frost said.
“The spring game is going to be fun for me, I get to sit and watch the coaching staff work and kinda observe everything—so really what I am looking for is good competition, good enthusiasm and good execution.”
That game will take place at Spectrum Stadium Saturday night at 6:30pm.