Mikey's maturation ahead of Gasparilla Bowl and shine bright like a Diamond 💎
We examine Mikey Keene's growth since becoming the starting quarterback, plus COVID-19 looms over bowl season as kickoff approaches.
Coach KZ? Really enjoyed this 1-on-1 by Mike Bianchi with former UCF QB McKenzie Milton, who confirmed he’s moving back to Orlando to be closer to the UCF program. He opened up on his NFL and coaching aspirations, Dillon Gabriel’s transfer and how NIL has changed the sport.
Read Mike’s interview here (subscription).
Today’s read is 5 minutes ⏲️
Trending in the Kingdom: Keene’s improvement 📈
Mikey Keene, a wide-eyed true freshman from Chandler, Arizona was thrown into action after Dillon Gabriel’s broken clavicle four weeks into UCF’s season. Now, with eight starts under his belt and Gabriel headed to UCLA, the Knights quarterback will get ready to face the Florida Gators in the Gasparilla Bowl on Thursday, hoping to earn the Knights’ biggest win of Gus Malzahn’s debut season.
Keene has been tested, with some turbulence along the way, but showed massive improvement down the stretch during his first collegiate season.
Here’s the scoop: Looking at his overall numbers, they aren’t eye-popping, but respectable for a kid who was playing high school football 12 months ago. Keene threw for 1,531 yards and 15 touchdowns in his nine starts, but there was a clear level of comfortability and cachet that came in the final six games of the regular season, in which he led the Knights to a 5-1 record.
What they’re saying 🗣: Gus Malzahn
"He was thrown into the fire, like week four, and didn't have time other than, oh yeah I'm up,” Malzahn said this week. “He battled and he's a great competitor. He improved each week. It was a learning process for me and coaches to kind of learn him and him to learn his teammates and everything…I think he's in a real good spot. You can tell in bowl practice that it just seemed different. You can see that he was a more confident guy. That's to be expected.”
What they’re saying 🗣: Mikey Keene
“Sometimes I have to look back at it. I’m still only a freshman,” Keene said. “I’ve got things popping up on my phone, like from a year ago today, I just signed [with UCF] a couple of days ago. Just putting it into perspective, it’s a really incredible opportunity for me. I’m just blessed to be here.”
📈 Keene was probably scrutinized a little too much during the early part of the season (heck, I’m guilty of calling him out, too), but he really put the work in to cut down on the turnovers and get comfortable with Malzahn’s playbook, and it showed in the latter half of the season.
On target 🎯: He didn’t throw a pick in the final four games, but it goes beyond just being smart with the football. He truly got in a groove, and the advanced analytics showed it, courtesy of Pro Football Focus.
Some overall observations of Keene’s rookie campaign:
Keene had a passing grade of 66.6 in the last six games of the regular season, up from 55.7 in the seven weeks prior, a rise of 80 spots nationally.
Among FBS true freshman quarterbacks with a minimum of 200 drop backs, Keene had the eighth-highest passing grade this season, at 63.6. His 16 touchdowns were fifth-most and his six interceptions tied for the fourth-fewest.
Against Cincinnati and SMU, the two biggest games of the season where Keene struggled, he was pressed a total of 25 times combined, nearly 40 percent of his season’s total. Against Tulane, Memphis, UConn and Temple, he was pressured a combined total of 13 times.
Keene was under pressure for 23.2% of his drop backs and really struggled when under duress, with a 30.8 offensive grade, throwing one touchdown and one interception. To the offensive line’s credit, he was kept clean on 76.8% of his drop backs, with a 73.0 offensive grade and made all 10 of his “big time throws” - which is a pass with excellent ball location, timing and thrown into a tighter window - when given the time.
He was also much better during play-action this season, which accounted for 37.3% of his drop backs. He had a passing grade of 72.4 on play-action plays, compared to 56.6 on non-play action calls.
I also got a better look at where Keene was throwing the football this season. Some of this is by design from Gus, but his best passing grades came on medium throws, which is 10-19 yards down the field.
Deep passes (20+ yards): 60.3 grade
Medium passes (10-19 yards): 74.8 grade
Short passes (0-9 yards): 62.4 grade
Behind the line of scrimmage: 74.1 grade
Malzahn was definitely cautious with his play calling this season for the true freshman signal caller, with nearly 60 percent of his attempted passes targeted 9 or less yards down the field, or behind the line of scrimmage.
Under Malzahn in 2020 at Auburn, Bo Nix attempted 58.4% of his passes on short-depth targets (9 yards or less) or behind the line of scrimmage, so similar to Keene’s splits this year.
In 2019, Nix was at 57.3 percent, so Malzahn quarterbacks seem to hover around that number.
Jarrett Stidham in 2018 attempted 63.2% of his attempts on short yardage or behind the line, but his most effective throw was the deep ball (84.4 grade), so Malzahn isn’t afraid to let it rip if he has the right guy back there.
Food for thought 🤔: Just for comparison, here’s a look at Keene’s 2021 true freshman season vs. McKenzie Milton’s true freshman campaign in 2016. Spoiler alert: Keene’s was better.
Mikey Keene (2021)
PFF Offensive Grade: 62.7
PFF Passing Grade: 63.6
Completion percentage: 63.6%
Passing yards: 1,606
Passing touchdowns: 15
Interceptions: 6
McKenzie Milton (2016)
PFF Offensive Grade: 50.0
PFF Passing Grade: 48.2
Completion percentage: 57.7%
Passing yards: 1,974
Passing touchdowns: 10
Interceptions: 7
You could see Keene’s confidence growing as the season went on. Now he’ll have had a few weeks of game planning to face a Gators squad that was Top 50 in overall defense this season, so he’ll have to be up for the challenge.
WATCH ▶️: Keene previews Gasparilla Bowl 👇🏻
Could COVID get in the way? 🦠😬
Every sports league is having to navigate the recent outbreak of COVID cases due to the Omicron variant’s spread across the country.
The NFL had a double-header on Tuesday night because of rescheduled games due to the virus, the NBA has 80-plus players sidelined in the league’s protocols and the NHL is hitting pause on its season until after Christmas with more than 15% of its players on the league's protocol list.
Could the new variant impact Thursday’s Gasparilla Bowl game? 🤔
Fill me in: Both teams should consider themselves lucky to be playing an early bowl game, given the new Omicron variant’s rapid spread.
It’s now the dominant strain in the U.S., accounting for 73 percent of all new cases, according to CDC data.
As recently as the end of November, more than 99.5% of coronaviruses were Delta, according to CDC data, so it has shifted in recent weeks.
Medical experts are still researching the variant, since much is unknown, but it’s believed to be way more transmissible than Delta, but appears to be more mild, especially for vaccinated folks.
Florida reported more than 12,000 new COVID cases on Monday, more than quadrupling the daily case total from a week ago.
🦠 The Miami Hurricanes team has entered COVID protocols ahead of their bowl game on December 31, with the Sun Sentinel reporting several Canes have tested positive. UM is scheduled to play Washington State in the Sun Bowl on New Years Eve in El Paso, Texas.
🦠 Texas A&M is dealing with a COVID outbreak that has Gator Bowl officials wondering if the game against Wake Forest in Jacksonville will still be played. The Aggies are scheduled to travel to Florida on Tuesday, Dec. 27, so we’ll see if they make the trip. Per reports, bowl prep has been shut down since the weekend and the team has been holding meetings on Zoom.
🦠 Alabama just beefed up their own COVID precautions, returning to their safety protocols from a year ago in the hopes of avoiding any virus issues ahead of their College Football Playoff semifinal game with Cincinnati. Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said that more than 90% of his players are vaccinated and have received their booster shots.
How is Florida and UCF approaching the virus ahead of Thursday’s game?
Malzahn doesn’t seem to be too concerned. Much of the team spent Tuesday night at a movie theatre, unmasked.
“We’ve got COVID etiquette,” Malzahn said. “We’ve got to make good decisions as far as when they were in their apartments and all that and it’s coaches, too. It’s a concern right now that you get a little stressed about as a coach, but our guys have done a good job all season and hopefully, we can get everyone in the game.”
Pre-game reading 📖 👓:
Here are the UCF and Florida football players to watch in the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl (Gainesville Sun)
Gasparilla Bowl Prediction and Preview: Florida vs. UCF (Athlon Sports)
Sunday betting odds for Florida football vs UCF in Gasparilla Bowl (USA Today)
Shine bright like a Diamond 💎
We’ve witnessed UCF women’s basketball senior guard Diamond Battles blossom into a star this season, as she’s fresh off another impressive outing against a Power 5 opponent.
Tell me more: Battles finished with 12 points, three assists and a season-high four steals in last week’s loss to Iowa, putting together her eighth double-digit scoring effort of the season.
She leads the Knights in scoring (14.5 ppg), 3PT FG% (37.0), steals (26) and minutes per game (35.0) this season.
The Winter Haven native has emerged as a key leader this season for a squad that’s been on the cusp of a Top 25 ranking, leading UCF in scoring in six of the first 10 games.
Her points per game average jumped nearly 10 points a contest from last season (5.3 ppg up to 14.5 ppg) and she improved her range, hitting 10 3-pointers this season. She hadn’t drained a single shot from downtown prior to this year.
Battles also never reached the 20-point mark in her career prior to 2021. She has three 20-point outings so far this season.
Up next 📆: UCF at Princeton, Dec. 29 in Princeton, NJ on ESPN+