Predicting ceiling, floor for UCF in 2024 season

The UCF Knights and head coach Gus Malzahn are looking to bounce back from a season where they finished under .500 by competing among the top teams in the Big 12 for the 2024 season.

While looking ahead to the 2024 season,  Andy Staples and Ari Temkin of Big 12 Radio broke down UCF for the upcoming season on Andy Staples On3. In particular, the pair focused on what fans could expect for a win ceiling and a win floor for the Knights come football season.

In the end, the pair debated whether or not UCF was a contender to make the Big 12 Championship Game, or if their ceiling was to actually win it and go to the College Football Playoff. Meanwhile, both Staples and Temkin agreed that it’s a safe bet that UCF is going to at least make a bowl game in 2024.

CEILING: Compete for Big 12 Championship/College Football Playoff

Andy Staples opened up the conversation by contextualizing the 2023 season, and how UCF came up short several times amid struggles in its transition to the Big 12.

“Gus Malzahn was not pleased after last season,” Andy Staples said. “It was his first under .500 season as a college head coach. He felt like they weren’t ready for the Big 12. He blamed himself for not making them deep enough to compete in the Big 12. They had the epic collapse against Baylor. They should have beaten Oklahoma.”

Despite that, there were bright spots on offense and with the addition of KJ Jefferson, the Knights look more than formidable in 2024.

“They get RJ Harvey back. The 1,400-yarder back. They go get KJ Jefferson out of the Transfer Portal, who other than Cam Newton…but if you gave Gus Malzahn a copy of EA Sports College Football 25, and made him create a player, he’d create KJ Jefferson as his quarterback. So, I’m pretty excited about what they can do offensively. Whether they can stop anyone is another question.”

Ari Temkin agreed that Jefferson and Malzahn are perfect fits for one another. However, he did make sure to emphasize that Jefferson is far from the only transfer that UCF added.

“Number one, this offense is gonna be very good. KJ Jefferson has been an elite player when he’s had the right coaching around him. You look at his numbers last year versus when Kendal Briles was the offensive coordinator at Arkansas, different player. So, it’s good for KJ to be on the Gus Bus, because if there’s somebody who can figure out offensively how to handle KJ Jefferson, it’s Gus,” Temkin said.

“On top of that, they’ve had as good of a portal as anybody in college football, especially the most recent spring portal window. They added some big time players from the portal that period. So, I’m really high on UCF.”

UCF is also in for an interesting schedule. That includes a really big game against the Florida Gators.

“Non-conference, they have a very interesting one where they go to Gainesville,” Staples said. “That’s one the Florida people are much more worried about than the UCF people because if UCF loses that game, eh whatever. If they beat Florida, it’s an existential crisis in Gainesville. Oh, and by the way, KJ Jefferson beat Florida last year in The Swamp with a worse Arkansas team than this UCF team by far.”

While Temkin admitted that UCF may not need the win the same way Florida does individually, he also wanted to make it clear how big it was for the conference.

“That’s such a big game for the Big 12,” Temkin said. “The Big 12 needs to win games against SEC opponents because the viewpoint of the Big 12, the perception of the Big 12, is that it’s basically now the American Athletic Conference relative to the Power 2. So, any opportunity that the Big 12 has to win those games is huge. You know, we’ve heard SEC athletic directors last week at SEC meetings talk about nine wins should be good enough in the SEC to get you in. That’s where the Big 12 needs to knock off some SEC teams so that a 9-3 team in the SEC doesn’t look so good because it’s like, ‘Did you not see the Big 12 has beaten some of those teams too?'”

Beyond that, UCF ends the season with one of its toughest games, against Utah. That challenge could help decide if UCF reaches its celiing.

“So, they got Utah on Black Friday,” Staples said. “That’s the only one of the big three that we’ve been talking about that they’ve gotta play. They could be playing Utah for a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game. That would not shock me at all.”

Ultimately, Temkin decided that competing to make the Big 12 Championship Game is where he draws the line for UCF.

“I’m with you. I think when you look at the quarterback,” Temkin said. “You look at the wide receivers they have, the weapons, the running game, I think their ceiling is the Big 12 Championship. Maybe it’s just getting to the Big 12 title game. Maybe saying they could win and make the Playoff would be too much of a stretch. But I just think that Gus Malzahn is the right coach to get the most out of him. So, I love UCF this year. I’m big on UCF maybe being the surprise team in the Big 12 this year.”

Staples went just a bit further, arguing that if UCF can make the conference title game, why can’t it also win the game and go to the College Football Playoff?

“My ceiling for UCF is Big 12 Title, College Football Playoff berth,” Staples said.

FLOOR: 6-6/7-5

One major issue for UCF in 2023 ended up being the defense. Part of that came from a simple lack of depth and size on the interior as the Knights moved up to the Big 12 from the AAC.

“Yeah, 95th in the country in sacks last year,” Andy Staples said. “They’ve got to get more pressure on the quarterback, and I think that’s probably why they were so bad against the pass. But, as you said, in this league you’re not gonna have teams trying to throw all over you, except for a few. Now, it’s teams trying to run all over you. UCF is one of those teams that will try to run all over you. So, that’s the thing.”

Even with those issues, UCF was the only new Big 12 school last season to make a bowl game. Gus Malzahn has worked to improve the roster since then. That leaves UCF with a fairly comfortable floor in 2024.

“My floor for UCF is 7-5. Like, they’re not going under .500 again,” Staples said. “I think UCF is gonna be one of the powers in the Big 12 going forward. They just needed to get a little bit deeper.”

For his part, Ari Temkin agreed while giving the possibility for the floor to be six wins instead of seven. Either way, the Knights should be on their way back to a bowl game.

“I agree with that, and look, they were the only new team from last year that actually made a bowl game. It was such a bad year for them because, historically, they just don’t lose a lot of games in the same season, especially recently,” Temkin said. “So, it was so tough for them…but they got to a bowl game. There’s no way they’re gonna be worse than they were last year. Their floor is six, seven wins.”