Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Frost pushes Knights to stay hungry, humble
Iowa State proved Saturday that anything can happen in the crazy world of college football.
UCF coach Scott Frost wants to make sure his team isn’t the subject of America’s next upset special.
After Iowa State, a 31-point road underdog, pulled off a huge upset at No. 3 Oklahoma, Frost made sure to let his team know about it prior to taking the field against Cincin- nati on Saturday night
If the 4-0 Knights can continue to roll through their schedule, they will become more and more of a target to those looking to knock them off their pedestal. Frost is well aware that opposing teams will try to use UCF’s success as motivation.
“I mentioned the Iowa State game to them before the game Saturday ... Those games happen. It’s college football. People play up, people play down. It’s hard to be at your absolute very best 11 or 12 weeks in a row,” Frost said. “But our guys understand that people are going to be coming at them and we gotta be at our best every week, especially in this conference.
“So we’ll continue to do what we can to get them at their best, physically and mentally, and this group is handling everything that is thrown at them pretty well this year.”
So far, the Knights are rolling right along. They’re unbeaten and ranked No. 22 in the latest Associated Press top 25 poll and Frost has become a national media darling. Last week, he made appearances on The Paul Finebaum Show and The Jim Rome Show. ESPN had him “miked up” for a GameDay segment two weeks ago.
As linebacker Chequan Burkett said last week, “It’s a good time to be a Knight.”
That can all go away quickly, however, and Frost is hoping the coaching staff is able to keep this team from becoming complacent and even a bit cocky as the season moves forward.
“I wanna guard against talking and acting like we’ve arrived. We’re not there yet. … We want our guys to stay hungry,” Frost said. “Having other people pat us on the back is probably inevitable when you’re having success. We have to keep our guys from patting themselves on the back.
“That’s when it really becomes dangerous is when our guys really start to buy into the fact that they’re good.”
UCF has beaten its first four opponents by an average margin of almost 32 points per game. The Knights have put up incredible offensive numbers, averaging 533 yards per game. The defense, despite bending a bit against Cincinnati, has held teams to 329 yards per game and created 11 turnovers.
Given the ease with which the Knights have beaten their first four opponents, there’s a reason for the coaching staff to be concerned about complacency.
UCF is 4-0 for the first time since joining the Football Bowl Subdivision level and second time since 1988. Not even the Blake Bortlesled Knights of 2013 did that. There are, however, still seven games remaining on the schedule, with the Knights’ next game a homecoming date with East Carolina.
“We have a lot of room for improvement yet. We gotta follow the same formula of having a little bit of a chip on our shoulder going into these games, as I think our guys did coming from where this program came from,” Frost said.
“We talk to the players all the time [about how] praise and blame is all the same. The same people that are gonna tell you you’re doing great are the ones who are gonna criticize when you’re doing poorly and they’re both imposters. Usually the truth is somewhere in the middle.”
While some people might not think this team has faced much on-field adversity this season, Frost points out that many of his players endured the 0-12 season the Knights experienced in 2015 and their determined nature is a testament to the perseverance of the group.