UCF secondary to none
Defensive backs tested by team’s No. 1 offense
UCF football’s 2018 schedule includes four teams — FAU, SMU, Memphis and USF — that ranked among the nation’s top 12 in scoring last season.
How will these Knights prepare for such challenges? Easy. Spend all year going up against the nation’s No. 1 scoring offense.
“I think our receiving corps will probably be the best guys we play against, so it’s always good going against those guys every day,” UCF cornerback Brandon Moore said.
Despite cornerback Mike Hughes’ early departure to the NFL and safety Tre Neal’s transfer to Nebraska, the Knights’ defensive secondary still boasts a blend of talent and experience.
The projected starting safeties, Kyle Gibson and Richie Grant, played in every game last season. The same holds true for Moore, and fellow starting cornerback Nevelle Clarke, who made five starts. According to coach Josh Heupel, no group of players has caught his eye more during the early stages of preseason camp.
“I think as much as anything in the first five days, I’m really happy about the maturity, the growth and the way that our defensive backfield has really attacked every single play every single day,” he said. “... It will be critical that that group continues to mature that way.”
There’s no maturity lacking in Gibson, a fifth-year senior who ended 2017 as a first team All-
AAC selection and was named to the preseason watch list for the Jim Thorpe Award, which is presented to the nation’s best defensive back. He has been cited by his coaches and teammates as one of UCF’s most natural leaders, and secondary coach Willie Martinez said it’s hard to describe what having Gibson, who leads by example, can mean for the Knights.
“He’s got a bad case of ‘the wants’ that I like to say a lot of times,” Martinez said of Gibson. “He wants to be great. He wants to do it the right way. It’s important to him. Any time you’ve got a guy who is older like that, that has that kind of an attitude, it’s only going to help your team.”
Gibson said he is excited to see how Grant performs now that the redshirt sophomore has been elevated into a starting role. An athletic player who has the versatility to line up at different positions, he is being asked to replace Neal’s playmaking ability.
Of course, sophomore safety Antwan Collier recorded arguably the biggest play of the Knights’ 2017 season, coming down with the game-clinching, perfect-season-capping interception during the closing moments of the Peach Bowl. Collier’s intelligence stood out to his position coach.
“Learning the system that he had to learn, he picked it up rather quickly,” Martinez said.
Martinez labeled Clarke, a redshirt junior, one of the most consistent members of the defense since UCF’s new staff arrived on campus. A rangy, 6-foot-1 corner, Clarke has shown the ability to limit some of the best receivers in the game.
Moore said he feeds off the energy that Clarke brings to the cornerback position and enjoys how he is always positive with Moore even if he misses a play he knows he should have made.
Moore, also known as “Bam,” is clear with what he wants to show this season: “That I’m a better player than last year.” Last year, he registered eight pass breakups, secondmost on the team. But Martinez has been pressing the redshirt sophomore to deliver more interceptions.
“‘Hey, let’s be a gamechanger,’” Martinez has told Moore. “‘Let’s catch the football.’”