Gus takes the fall 🤦♂️ and Todd Dagenais' brilliance
The loss to Navy was one of the ugliest in quite some time, but does Gus Malzahn deserve all the blame? Plus, let's show some love to UCF Volleyball.
Misery sure loves company. I’m not the only one who took pleasure in watching Miami, USF and Florida all lose on Saturday, right? Helps take the pain away.
Or maybe that was the tequila.
🚨 Just in: UCF at Cincinnati is a noon kickoff on ABC on Oct. 16 🚨
Today’s read is 4 minutes ⏲️
Trending in the Kingdom: Gus takes the blame 🤦♂️
Fans will never be kind when you blow a 13-point fourth-quarter lead to a winless team, but Gus Malzahn took some serious heat for his play-calling late against Navy, and rightfully so.
Here’s the scoop: That 34-30 slip up against Navy felt like one of the worst UCF losses in quite some time, maybe on par with the 16-15 loss to Furman in 2015, which partially led to that infamous 0-12 season.
Former UCF punter Mac Loudermilk actually alluded to that loss in our Instagram Live postgame show with Sean Barakett, saying now it’s all about rallying around each other to salvage this season.
“Come together, that’s the biggest thing,” Loudermilk said. “One of the biggest things that happened that 0-12 season after Furman is everything started fracturing. Don’t let that happen…you have to stick with each other if you want something positive to come out of it.”
Look, all is not lost, but it starts with beating ECU on Saturday and then getting prepared for one of the biggest games in school history at Cincinnati on October 16. The U-C game feels a lot less winnable now, but adjustments will have to be made, especially in terms of discipline and play-calling.
What was he thinking? 🤔 On the final drive of the game for UCF and with a chance to take the lead, Mikey Keene had five straight completions and marched UCF down to the Navy 12-yard line. Malzahn then decided to sub in backup quarterback Joey Gatewood for a play with 1:20 remaining, and it resulted in a jumbled, pressured Gatewood throwing the ball into the dirt at the goal line. Here’s how the rest of the drive went:
2nd and 10, Alec Holler drops a Keene pass at the 7-yard line, which is almost intercepted.
3rd and 10, Malzahn calls an end-around for Amari Johnson, which worked in the red zone in the first quarter for a touchdown, but Navy was ready for it this time, resulting in a loss of five yards.
4th and 15, Keene tries to make something happen, but throws into quadruple-coverage in the end zone, which ends up getting picked.
Malzahn seemed to call a pretty conservative game around Keene, given it was his first start, but the play-calling seemed to get way too cute in the final moments. Malzahn was asked about subbing in Gatewood there and side-stepped the question postgame, but Malzahn did admit that the bevy of mistakes on special teams and blowing a 13-point lead is on him and the coaching staff.
“Any time you do things to lose the game, it starts with coaches,” Malzahn said. “I’ve got to do a better job of getting the coaches ready, and we’ll do that. We’ll rebound.”
They better, because most of the mistakes are fixable. The blocked punt (which Malzahn said was the turning point in the game) and muffed extra point, the poor run defense and tackling against the triple option, Big Kat Bryant’s offsides penalty that led to Navy’s game-winning score…all of those things are correctable.
The biggest of concerns following the Navy game is UCF’s defense, which we all expected to turn things around this season. So far, it has been bleak.
UCF’s overall defensive grades by game, according to Pro Football Focus, have gotten worse each contest, per Brandon Helwig of UCFSports.com:
Boise State: 74.4
Bethune-Cookman: 73.9
Louisville: 68.3
Navy: 67.6
Here we go again? 👀
The common critique when it comes to Malzahn is the criticism of his play-calling, especially in critical moments, which predates his time at UCF. He even gave up calling plays twice while he was at Auburn, which he admitted was a mistake.
In 2015: Malzahn was blasted for his poor play-calling against Ole Miss, especially on third downs: “Shaky decision-making from Malzahn played a huge role in that disadvantage for the Tigers, who missed yet another big-time opportunity in a season that increasingly looks like it will end with a losing record. And that would be even more shocking for Auburn than a handful of baffling play calls.”
In 2019: Malzahn called himself out for bad decision making in a win over Oregon.
In 2020: The Auburn offense regressed so much that AL.com called it “one of the -- if not the -- worst offensive seasons of the Malzahn era, which began in 2013.” That season, Auburn posted the second-worst total offense of the last eight years under Malzahn.
Here’s how five of UCF’s six possessions in the second half against Navy ended: three punts, a fumble and an interception. That’s not all on Malzahn, but it won’t help bury some of the criticism of years past.
For perspective 🤕: You’re missing your Heisman Trophy contending quarterback (Dillon Gabriel), your best running back (Isaiah Bowser), No. 1 wide receiver (Jaylon Robinson), your best linebacker (Tatum Bethune), a key interior defensive lineman (Ricky Barber) and a playmaker in secondary (Corey Thornton). Plus, your all-conference starting center Matt Lee is nursing a foot injury.
UCF is badly beat up and those guys make the difference, but that can’t be an excuse when you lose to a Navy team that came in with college football’s worse scoring offense.
It sounds like Bowser and Robinson could be out for an extended period of time, too.
One thought on Mikey Keene: I really enjoyed watching him play, especially the poise on the final drive, before Malzahn brought in Gatewood. Keene showed flashes of brilliance, the ability to make plays with his feet, pinpoint accuracy and the smarts to throw it away when something isn’t there.
He completed his first three passes, two of them for touchdowns, finishing 16-for-26 with 178 yards, those two scores and a pick.
“I told Mikey I’m proud of him,” Malzahn said. “The rest of his teammates did the same thing. You’re making your first start on the road in this environment. He’ll grow. He’ll learn. Overall, I thought he managed the game pretty well and fought his guts out.”
📅 UCF vs. ECU: Saturday, Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. on ESPN+
The Dagenais’ dynasty taking shape 🏐
The second-longest tenured coach at UCF is Todd Dagenais, who has been at the helm of UCF Volleyball since 2008. Since then, and really over the last half-decade, he’s guided the Knights to four trips to the NCAA Tournament and has made this program nationally recognizable again.
Fill me in: The Knights are off to an 11-5 start this season, riding a 7-match win streak after downing Tulsa on Sunday. That followed an impressive, five-set thriller over Wichita State on Friday. The Knights are in first place in the American, trying to win their fourth-consecutive conference championship.
With the win over Tulsa, Dagenais now has 264 career victories at UCF, the winningest volleyball coach in school history. He’s in his 14th season in Orlando and considering that change is the only constant in collegiate athletics, it’s quite impressive how long he’s stuck around, and kept this program in the right direction.
Here’s where UCF was at in 2008, for some perspective, courtesy of our friends at KnightSportsNow.com:
UCF football, under the direction of George O’Leary, had just won its first-ever conference championship. They now have six conference titles.
Kirk Speraw was still the head coach of the UCF Men’s Basketball team.
The Bounce House was not even a year old yet.
UCF Downtown didn’t exist.
An incredible run 🏆: UCF hasn’t lost a conference game since Nov. 10, 2019, against Cincinnati. That’s 694 days.
UCF is 44-2 in conference play since the start of the 2018 season, losing to Cincinnati twice in that 2019 season.
Overall, they’re 79-19 in regular-season play since the start of 2018.
They’ve won three conference titles and have three NCAA Tournament appearances over that span.
Dagenais’ .630 win percentage ranks third in UCF volleyball history, behind Lucy McDaniel (.881) and Laura Smith (.720), but he’s coach far more games.
Not sure Dagenais can top McDaniel, who led UCF in 1978 to a perfect 55–0 season in which they won the Division II AIAW National Championship and won a program-record 69 consecutive matches, but at this level, Dagenais sure has been extraordinary.
Four of UCF’s 10 NCAA Tournament trips have come under Dagenais’ leadership.
He has coached two All-Americans, 22 All-Region athletes and 33 all-conference players during his tenure.
Dagenais will always deflect praise to his players and fellow coaches, which is the sign of a humble-yet-confident coach, but it’s clear everyone has bought in to his vision.
UCF is ranked No. 17 in the NCAA Women’s Volleyball RPI, one spot behind Stanford, one of the most respected programs in the sport’s history. The goal for Dagenais preseason was to be ranked in the Top-25, so they’re hoping to stay where they’re at, which should happen if they continue to clean up in the conference.
📅 Next game: Friday, Oct. 8: UCF vs. Houston, 7 p.m. at The Venue (Orlando, Fla.)