Sept. 22, 2011
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By Marc Daniels
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - George O'Leary has a message to his veterans that it's time to raise their game as the team heads to Provo, Utah, for its showdown with BYU. The head coach was in no mood to dwell on the loss to FIU last week. Instead, the coach seeking his 100th-career win wants to see certain players start performing like he expected.
During his weekly radio show, O'Leary stated how good Jeff Godfrey is and will be but he also added that the quarterback had to do a better job of reading the defense and finding the hot receiver, and also needed to start swinging it around and throw deep more often.
"We need more big plays," said O'Leary. "There are plays out there to go deep and we need to get the ball down field."
Look for the Knights to try and get Quincy McDuffie deep a couple of times and don't be surprised to see J.J. Worton get more looks.
When asked about the rotation at running back, O'Leary indicated that he has moved into the direction of finding one back to get the majority of the carries and Brynn Harvey may be the guy whose number gets called on more.
"Harvey is the guy that gets better the more he carries the ball," said O'Leary. "I think we need to see him a bit more."
On defense, O'Leary believes his group has played well, but there are plays to be made to force more turnovers.
"We need to win that battle," said O'Leary. "It's a battle of field position and turnovers put you in position to change games quickly."
Changing the game quickly is something UCF wants to do at BYU. O'Leary believes it's been a solid week of preparation and his team is ready to go and he's looking for his group of veterans to lead the way.
Knights notes and more: UCF has won 10-straight games after a loss...UCF is 6-4 on Friday and has won five-straight games on either ESPN or ESPN 2...A win at BYU would be UCF's third non-conference win which would be the most since joining a conference...UCF has started 3-1 just twice since 1998...BYU has been outscored 30-3 in the third quarter this season...The Cougars have not returned a kickoff for a touchdown since Oct. 17, 1998, that's a span of 158 games...76 members of the BYU team have served a two year school mission before returning to play football and 38 players are currently serving a mission... BYU has consistently led the nation in attendance among non-BCS programs...BYU played in the 1976 Tangerine Bowl in Orlando losing to Oklahoma State and returned to play in the 1985 Citrus Bowl losing to Ohio State 10-7...Final thought: My wife recently bought two new "show" pillows. "Show" pillows, as I learned, are not there for sleep purposes but are there to make the bed look good when no one is sleeping. I have so many "show" pillows that I can no longer see the mattress and each night it takes about a half-hour to get the show pillows off the bed before going to sleep. Did I mention the part about how the "show" pillows have to be neatly lined up on the floor?
Marc Daniels' From the Press Box runs several times per month on UCFAthletics.com. Listen to Marc during UCF football, men's basketball and baseball radio broadcasts on the UCF Sports Network. Each weekday, Marc hosts The Beat of Sports on ESPN Radio 1080 in Orlando.