#ChargeOn Today: 🏆 drought continues — Waking up from the dead period ✍🏽
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Trending in the Kingdom: The wait continues 😔⚾
USF baseball celebrates their win over UCF in the AAC Championship game. (Photo: USFBulls.com)
You hate losing to your rival. It stings even more when there’s a championship on the line. UCF baseball’s magical run in the American Athletic Conference tournament ended with a sour loss, 8-7, to South Florida in Sunday’s title game in Clearwater.
Fill me in: Both clubs entered the championship game hoping to end a long conference title drought. UCF hadn’t won a conference championship game since 2002 (A-Sun) and USF was looking for its first conference championship since 1995 (Metro Conference).
The Knights trailed 7-1 early, but mounted a heck of a comeback, scoring six runs in the 5th and 6th innings (when I left the ballpark, of course). The Knights had the tying run on second in the bottom of the ninth, but the Bulls shut the door.
Let the party begin. https://t.co/eux4NRRqy2
The loss means UCF is, once again, shut out of the NCAA Tournament. The Knights have gone dancing just seven times in the last 21 years, with the last coming in 2017. They haven’t won a tournament game in nearly a decade.
Good news is, the future is bright 💡. Four Knights made the all-tournament team, and most of them are underclassmen:
C Josh Crouch, Junior - Hit four home runs during the tournament, the most for any Knight all-time.
SS Alex Freeland, Freshman - Led UCF with a .438 batting average during tournament play.
OF Gephry Pena, Sophomore - Hit .350 with a dinger during the Knights run to the title game.
OF Jordan Rathbone, Redshirt Senior - Hit .333 with two homers and eight RBI during tournament play.
Give me a Knugget 🐴: Eighteen different freshman played a part in UCF’s 2021 season. They accounted for:
18 percent of home runs
22 percent of pitcher wins
25 percent of stolen bases
34 percent of RBIs
34 percent of pitcher strikeouts
38 percent of hits
“The future is bright,” head coach Greg Lovelady said after the tournament, via UCFSports.com. “I’m proud of those young guys for playing well this week.”
🧢 Who’s headed to the show? According to Lovelady, UCF could have multiple players drafted, including Crouch (Jr.), Pena (So.), SP Jack Sinclair (Jr.), SP Hunter Patteson (R-Fr.) and SP Colton Gordon (R-So.).
Gus Malzahn and his staff will finally get a chance to meet face-to-face with prospects in June. (Photo: Jason Beede)
🗓️ Dead period finally over: 'It's about to go crazy'
After nearly 15 months of zoom meetings with prospects, it’s time to finally meet face-to-face again. The NCAA officially lifts the ban on in-person meetings (on campus) for coaches and recruits on June 1. The rule has been in place since March 13, 2020, due to COVID-19.
Add in the fact that there’s a new one-time transfer rule in place and we’re about to see the March Madness of recruiting. Seriously, it’s going to be nuts.
Pull up game at midnight!!! It’s still here and the ⏰ is ticking!! It’s almost go time!! #keepclimbing #Donk 🍢🍢🍿🍿💯 https://t.co/liFAnVFOTE
Florida State is hosting a midnight madness, with 18 prospects on campus, at 12:01 a.m.
Cincinnati has plans for an on-campus camp just after midnight.
Scott Frost (👋 old friend) and Nebraska are preparing to host around 20 to 25 official visitors over the month of June.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said “it’s about to go crazy” as they get to show off $80 million in facility renovations.
In case you forgot: On March 13, 2020, with the pandemic spreading across the country, the NCAA instituted a recruiting dead period, which banned all on-and off-campus, in-person recruiting contact. They essentially shut down face-to-face contact between coaching staffs and recruits across all sports.
That forced coaches to get creative for most of the 2021 class, having to recruit kids virtually without on-campus or in-home visits.
Here’s an explanation of the rules, per the Salt Lake Tribune.
Had the pandemic never happened, April 15-May 29, 2020, would have been an evaluation period. Sept. 1-Nov. 28, aka the 2020 high school football season, would have been another, and April 15-May 29 of this year another. All three of those evaluation periods, totaling 179 days, were wiped out by the pandemic…
There will be two quiet periods in the coming months, June 1-27 and July 25-31, both of which allow camps and on-campus visits. When the NCAA announced the June 1 return to regular recruiting activities on April 15, it noted that the Division I Council issued a waiver permitting on-campus evaluations during unofficial visits on the days camps and clinics are allowed within those two quiet periods.
Furthermore, the number of football evaluation days for this fall will increase from 42 to 56.
Now the fun begins, with a month-long rush to get prospects on campus. There’s 26 days to get in as many visits, camps and meetings as possible.
“We’ve been planning the last three weeks getting prepared,” UCF head coach Gus Malzahn said at the recent Charge On Tour stop in Oviedo. “It’s going to be 26 days. It’s going to be the most important 26 days in the last two days from a recruiting standpoint. I’m sure other programs feel the same way. Our staff has worked extremely hard to get prepared for that moment.”
🏈 So, what’s Malzahn and Co. planning?
June 1: A list of premiere prospects ($), headlined by Bam Moore’s younger brother
June 5: A full 7-on-7 camp
June 8: High school prospect camp
June 11-13: A “Bounce House Weekend” for recruits
June 15: High school prospect camp
June 16: A five-star defensive tackle visits
June 17: A full 7-on-7 camp
June 18: Missouri commit Isaac Thompson visits
June 20: High school prospect camp
June 25: LB Deuce Caldwell has an official visit
Noteworthy: UCF currently has two commits for the 2022 class, quarterback Thomas Castellanos and offensive lineman Miguel Maldonado. They’re ranked No. 65 in the country and third in the AAC.
Deeper Dive 🤿:
College football coaches are getting creative with the recruiting dead period finally ending June 1 (CBS Sports)
Recruiting looks to return to normalcy with the end of dead period (Orlando Sentinel)
Alright, one more look at the sweet new logo on the way out 😊
By Ryan Bass
The #ChargeOn Today Newsletter is dedicated to covering trending UCF Athletics news and topics. Have some feedback? Shoot me a message: chargeontoday@gmail.com
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