Aug. 30, 2011
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By John Denton
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - Admittedly, UCF's George O'Leary is a hard coach to please when it comes to the intricacies and the daily grind of preseason practice. He's constantly pushing for more while stressing that teams either get better or worse, but rarely stay the same.
When looking at the entire body of work - UCF had 20 training camp-style practices over a 21-day period - O'Leary said he couldn't be much happier about the work ethic, attention to detail and daily improvement of his veteran football team.
The Knights open the season Saturday night at 7 p.m. against Charleston Southern at Bright House Networks Stadium. UCF has been in game plan mode since last Thursday, and O'Leary feels his team is ready to go after a successful and fruitful preseason.
``I don't think anybody is ever happy with practice all of the time, but I think the players had a good preseason and we stayed healthy for the most part. The kids went out and took coaching and we got a lot of installation in and the younger players kept up with it,'' O'Leary said Monday on his weekly Conference USA conference call. ``I was pleased with the scrimmage work and contact work that we got in. Overall, it was a good preseason as far as getting better each week. I thought we got done what we wanted to get accomplished.''
Expectations are at an all-time high for a Knights team coming off its finest season in school history. UCF won 11 games, the C-USA title and the Liberty Bowl last season. The Knights finished last season No. 20 and 21 in the two national polls, but were surprisingly shut out heading into this season despite having the bulk of the playmakers returning on both sides of the ball.
One such player is sophomore Jeff Godfrey, who looks to build on arguably the best freshman season in the nation last season. Godfrey was the C-USA Freshman of the Year after having the highest efficiency ranking in the nation for a freshman quarterback. He ran for 10 touchdowns and passed for 13 more while leading the Knights to some of their greatest successes ever.
A year later, O'Leary said the quarterback is miles ahead of where he was this time last season in terms of poise and knowledge of the offense.
``Last year Jeff was a typical freshman going out there and doing a lot on his athletic ability,'' said O'Leary, who has worked with Godfrey on staying in the pocket longer this season. `` He took many bad plays and made good plays out of them, but this year he's a lot more poised as far as getting things done and not just taking off and running. He understands protection better and he's making better decisions when delivering the ball down the field. I've been pleased with his progress. He's a natural leader which your quarterbacks have to be. I've been very pleased with his progress.''
Like UCF with Godfrey, Charleston Southern features a cat-quick quarterback who can hurt defenses with his running and his passing. Malcolm Dixon is a 6-foot-1, 200-pound sophomore adept at running the option and also finding receivers down the field.
``From reading and watching tape they are a team that isolates you in the open field so you are down to single responsibility,'' O'Leary said. ``They've got a quarterback who can hurt you with his feet and his arm. Anytime you have that it's like having another running back. They have a lot of their offensive line back and some big size running back. They run the option and some power stuff and throw the ball in space. We'll have our work cut out for us trying to corral them.''
Charleston Southern's roster has a distinct Florida feel to it with 47 players hailing from the Sunshine State. Seventeen of those players are from Orlando, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Daytona Beach or Lakeland. The Buccaneers, 3-8 last season, play Florida State in Tallahassee the following week.
John Denton's Knights Insider appears on UCFAthletics.com several times a week. E-mail John at jdenton@athletics.ucf.edu.