Dec. 23, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. -
By John Denton
UCFAthletics.com
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Sleep was but a rumor in the days after UCF's disappointing loss to Rutgers in the St. Petersburg Bowl, and by Tuesday morning Knights head coach George O'Leary had already reviewed the game film four times.
No one took the loss harder than O'Leary, who was frustrated in UCF getting whipped physically along the offensive line in the 45-24 loss to Rutgers. Fourteen of Rutgers points came as result of interceptions, so he thinks his defense held up admirably other than some poor tackle angles on long passes.
But O'Leary has already turned his focus toward upgrading the toughness and agility along the offensive line. He's full bore into recruiting and by evaluating the film he wants to see what the Knights can do differently so performances like Saturday's a few and far between.
Scattered all across O'Leary desk are play charts and player evaluations from Saturday's bowl game. Every position has been broken down from every play and O'Leary has notes what could and should have been done differently. Clearly, it's a loss that isn't about to leave his consciousness anytime soon.
``It will be with me until Jan. 10 when the players get back,'' he said. ``I've been through the game four times already and I grade every play and grade both sides of the ball. ``What I saw was a game where we basically shot ourselves in the foot. We had a pick for a touchdown and an onside kick which was bad because it was so shallow. (Rutgers) had two big plays on defense both on poor coverage. One was on poor angles of pursuit and the other was just poor coverage.''
But what infuriated O'Leary most was the offensive line's inability to get much of anything done in the run or the pass game. Through three quarters, the Knights had minus-one yard rushing on 19 carries and O'Leary said on UCF's 35 pass attempts the quarterbacks were hit or pressure on 23 of them.
``Overall, I'm just really disappointed in the consistency of our offensive line,'' O'Leary said. ``That was the game right there, because we didn't do much of anything (with the line) with the run or pass. It's hard to call a game when you can't establish anything in the run game. And in the passing game, Brett (Hodges) has had better days, but he had a lot of pressure on him all day. Brett didn't play his best game, but he wasn't helped much either.''
We here at UCFAthletics.com sat down with O'Leary for an extended question and answer session. We'll break the chat up into two parts. Part one mostly focuses on recap from the bowl and the season. Part two, which is available here, focuses on the look ahead to next season.
QUESTION: Was the inability to run the ball the most surprising aspect of the game considering that your offensive line seemed to really gel down the stretch and Brynn Harvey closed the season strong?
COACH O'LEARY: ``When I watch the tape it's five and six-man boxes and we just didn't sustain any blocks and didn't run our feet. Our offensive line as a whole just didn't play very well run or pass. The rest of the positions were at least competitive.''
``They'll show that tape again on TV the next few weeks and it will just drive you nuts. We just didn't play well offensively, but defensively we were pretty good other than a couple of big plays in the passing game.''
``We had nine seniors who really played a lot and really only about three of them played well. That's what drives me nuts - the last shot out of the gate for some of those guys and they didn't play well.''
QUESTION: Does a game like that against a Big East team just show that you that you have to upgrade the talent base in recruiting?
COACH O'LEARY: ``I think we have to upgrade our offensive line recruiting. We have five players verbally committed now on the offensive line. But every other position I think we've helped ourselves from an athletic standpoint.
``But on the offensive line, that's been the Achilles' heel. We ran well in 2007, but when you really look at the film a lot of that was on Kevin (Smith). And 2008, we had a lot of the same problems with the offensive line. I told the coaches sometimes you take offensive linemen for granted. We have to upgrade our toughness there. Sometimes you take guys because they are linemen, but the toughness of the position has to be better. That's the thrust now. We have to spend more time on getting kids and upgrading the talent level.''
QUESTION: You won eight games, including the last six in a row in the conference, but you missed out on some of the team's biggest goals like winning the conference and winning the bowl game. Successful season or not?
COACH O'LEARY: ``I'm very proud of the football team. We never really settled in offensively with any consistency until the second half of the season. But a lot of that had to do with the offensive line. We used five, six and seven-man protections and then we started moving the ball.
``I think we were slow installing early because of the front because we wanted to keep things simple and make sure something like Saturday didn't happen during the season.''
``I thought we had a really good senior class. They were all four and five-year players who had great leadership on the field and they did a good job of keeping the locker room upbeat. They didn't let the young kids down when we were 3-3 and 2-2. We lost a couple that we wish we had back, but scheduling is a major part of success. I would have liked to have played some of those teams later in the season. But when we were 3-3, I told the kids we had a six-game season left and if we wanted to do something, we had to start then. We were able to stay in the conference hunt until the last game. There were some motivating factors out there that helped us.''
QUESTION: Isn't seeing the growth of a player like Bruce Miller, the conference's defensive player of the year, what it's all about for you as a coach?
COACH O'LEARY: ``I talked to his father at the bowl game about how Bruce came in as a freshman and we didn't know whether he was a linebacker or a defensive lineman. And now three years later he's the conference's defensive Player of the Year. He just makes plays and is around the ball all the time. That's the joy in coaching seeing the development in these kids from their first year to their senior year. He's a guy I expect leadership in last year and showing the way to others.''
QUESTION: What's your favorite moment from the season?
COACH O'LEARY: ``I really think that Bruce Miller play against Marshall was the play of the year. If he doesn't make that play, we're in trouble as far as keeping the motivation alive for the conference title. That was the play of the year for us.''
QUESTION: Your players don't report back until Jan. 10, so what's the plan of attack in the coming weeks and coming months for the coaching staff?
COACH O'LEARY: ``I came back Saturday with the team and it was about 2:30, I went home for a little while and I was back here at 6. I spent the day watching the tape and starting to grade it. I went through it twice more and now I'm at it again. This time of year, besides recruiting, you want to go back and set the tone for how we need to move ahead and what we need to be doing that we're not doing. The agility for our lines is paramount. The skill kids just need more growth, and they need to have a great offseason after some time off. But I'm going to start agility for our line much sooner than I normally do because I think our body control and change of direction needs a lot of work.''
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John Denton's Knights Insider appears on UCFathletics.com several times a week. E-mail John at jdenton@athletics.ucf.edu.
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NOTE: Part II of the George O'Leary Q and A will appear on UCFathletics.com on Thursday.