Heupel likes what he sees at UCF scrimmage
UCF coach Josh Heupel day’s scrimmage, carried likes what he saw from the out under the typically unreKnights during their first prelenting Florida summer sun, season scrimmage. provided the perfect envi
“The best part of the scrimronment for him to achieve mage was there was give and a personal goal that day: contake on both sides of the ditioning his body to push ball,” he said of the work- forward when he begins to out Thursday at Spectrum tire. Grant said such a mindStadium. “We competed set is necessary when chasreally hard. ing around UCF’s similarly
“Especially our young guys unrelenting offense. that maybe haven’t had an “It was tough, man. It opportunity to go out and was real tough,” he said. play in more of a game-like “The heat and the sun, I situation, they had to learn feel like this is the best deal how to kind of operate in we could get as a defense what they are doing on both because we’re dealing with sides of the ball. Play from the heat, we’re dealing with the snap to the whistle, but fast tempo, we’re dealing then how you’ve got to oper- with our offense getting lined ate in between as well, getup quicker than we are. It’s ting your eyes in the right just the best deal for us to position, getting signals, com- take into the season.” municating on both sides of Heupel has commended the football.” his defensive backs on how
Improved communication they have attacked the ball has been a point of emphasis throughout camp. Although among the Knights’ defenhe didn’t single out a player sive backs, according to or position group for their sophomore safety Richie performance during the Grant. He said the group has scrimmage, he spent some been progressing well on more time Monday lauding that front and “did a pretty his back line. good job” overall during the “Since the scrimmage, scrimmage. However, he did our DBs have played really acknowledge that the seccompetitive,” Heupel said. ondary still needs to take “They’ve gotten their hands sharper angles when pur- on some footballs, created suing the ball. some turnovers as well.
Grant also said Thurs- That was one of the goals for them coming out of that first scrimmage. I like what they’ve done since we got out of that one.”
Florida State: The Seminoles already has a quarterback committed in the 2019 class, and he’s a good one — Rivals100 pro-style passer Sam Howell, who pledged to Florida State in April.
However, there has been buzz for the past several months that Florida State could take a second quarterback in this class, and their name has popped up with several of the few remain- ing uncommitted prospects in the class. They were in on three-star Peter Parrish before his June commitment to LSU and Michael Johnson Jr. before his Penn State commitment earlier this month, but have come up as a possibility with recent Kansas decommit Lance Legendre and also were keeping an eye on three-star IMG Academy dual-threat David Baldwin in the spring.
The Seminoles are plenty happy with Howell, but if depth concerns at the position persist into the fall then they may attack for another quarterback before the early signing period.
■ Redshirt freshman defensive end Tre Lawson is no longer with the program, Florida State head coach Wil- lie Taggart confirmed before practice Thursday.
Taggart did not offer specifics on Lawson’s departure, but he had not been seen at practice since engaging in a fight with an offensive line- man last week at practice.
Lawson was not expected to be in Florida State’s primary rotation at defensive end this season.