UCF’s secondary is a competitive group driven to create turnovers
There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of competition, especially among teammates.
UCF continues to be an aggressive team, especially when it comes to turnovers. The Knights are ranked among the top 10 nationally in takeaways with 18, which is one more than UCF had at this point last season.
During the Knights’ most recent win, they had a season-high five turnovers en route to a victory over East Carolina.
“We’ve emphasized it a lot this year,” redshirt junior cornerback Nevelle Clarke said of the push to create takeaways. “We’re going to get turnovers and force turnovers. Right now, I think the whole defense is competing against each other. We’re all trying to get the most turnovers and compete for the No. 1 spot.”
Clarke, who already has an interception and a fumble recovery this season, said the secondary has specifically been working on making improvements each and every time they take the field.
“The main thing is everyone’s trying to improve with their technique, they’re trying to use their technique to help us win,” Clarke said. “I just feel like when everybody plays the defense like how it’s supposed to play, we can make the plays that we can make on the field.
“For the DBs, we’re making the plays we need to make.”
But that’s not to say there isn’t some good oldfashioned friendly competition among the defensive groups.
“We’re always competing. At the beginning of the year, we had the challenge to see who could have the most interceptions out of the corners and the safeties. Right now, I think the safeties are leading but the corners are going to make a comeback,” Clarke said with a smile.
To his point, Clarke is correct. The safeties including Kyle Gibson, Antwan Collier and Richie Grant have five interceptions this season, while the cornerbacks have just one (Clarke’s). The linebackers have three interceptions as a group, with Pat Jasinski, Eric Mitchell and Shawn Burgess-Becker each securing one during the team’s win over FAU.
“We haven’t talked about it lately but I’m going to bring it back up,” Clarke chuckled. “At least one of the corners has got to get a pick so we can start the conversation again.”
Count Clarke among the many Knights players excited to debut a new look Thursday night as the team unveils its 2018 spacethemed Nike uniforms featuring the Citronaut mascot logo on the top front of each of the jerseys.
“I mean uniforms look good,” Clarke said Monday. “A couple people have already texted me to try and get a picture. Some people say look good, play good. It will be good for the fans but we still have to go out there and play.”
Clarke admits he hasn’t seen Thursday’s combination yet, but he believes it might be his favorite look so far because the design on the jersey and the helmets feature constellations patterns, reflective numbers, a Cape Canaveral blue strip that runs from the front to the back of the helmets and the words “Reach for the Stars” in small print on the helmets.
Asked what suggestions he would have for a perfect uniform combination, Clarke insists it would have to be stylish.
“If I could do it, we would be out there swaggy,” he said. “I like the gold and black combination we wore two weeks ago [against East Carolina]. That’s my favorite combination.”
Redshirt senior offensive lineman Wyatt Miller couldn’t help himself while giving his assessment of the new space-themed uniforms.
“I heard the uniforms are going to be out of this world,” Miller chuckled.