Preview: Central Florida 2016

Essentials

Overview

UCF last year:

Also:

So they hired Scott Frost, who people are mad at for saying he thought his team was good and for having a mother who may or may not have trash-talked The Wolverine. Sports! (They should be mad at him for killing that kid on his dirtbike.) And they won a game 38-0 against SCSU (not that SCSU).

Anyway they're going to lose by a billion.

Run Offense vs Central Florida

Pittman can play.

This is an absurdly undersized front that should be vulnerable to Michigan packing the box and blowing guys off the ball. UCF runs a 3-4. They've got a 275-pound DE, which is not great Bob for a 3-4, and then the linebacker level runs 230, 228, 217, 213. This is a defense with at least six DB-sized players on the field at all times and two DTs tops. This is not ideal against anyone, let alone Jim Harbaugh's Michigan.

There is a person of interest. That would be junior DT Jamiyus Pittman, who led the team in TFLs with 7 and sacks with 4.5. Those are actually damn good numbers for a 300-pound 3-4 NT surrounded by nonentities. Pittman was an Ole Miss commit for a time and was better-ranked than the vast majority of the recruits in this year's Rutgers class, so he's got Power 5 ability.

The rest of the front seven consists of nondescript recruits performing nondescriptly. All advanced stats had the UCF rush defense in the triple digits and a good outing (2.7 YPA) against SCSU (not that SCSU) ain't going to change opinions.

Michigan will mash these gentlemen.

KEY MATCHUP: CHRIS EVANS versus EXPECTATIONS.

[Hit THE JUMP for a PICTURE OF SOMEBODY'S GRAVE because YOU CAN'T EVEN GOOGLE SOME OF THESE PEOPLE]

Pass Offense vs Central Florida

oh my god what happened when they played Stanford I don't even want to look

This will be an opportunity to see Michigan's receivers match up against a legit corner. Shaquill Griffin could have gone a lot of places but chose UCF so he could stick around with his brother, and last year he picked up 15 PBUs as a big fish in a little pond. He's on NFL radars—not high on them, but on them—and is the best bet for a Knight to go in the upcoming draft. Ace:

I was especially impressed with Shaquill Griffin, who had a second-half interception and made two first-half PBUs on deep shots when he was left on an island on zero blitzes. He's got excellent size and the plays he made on the ball will translate against any competition

He'll be a challenge for whoever draws him.

It does not figure to be much of a challenge for Michigan's offensive line and Wilton Speight's pocket awareness. UCF was 118th in adjusted sack rate a year ago and lost three defensive linemen, though not the one guy who picked up some sacks. That would be Pittman, naturally. If UCF gets through it'll be on a blitz pickup that gets busted.

This will be another shooting gallery for Speight; hopefully he can fit it in some tighter windows against Griffin and some of UCF's other athletic DBs while avoiding the Period Of Suck to start the game.

KEY MATCHUP: GRANT NEWSOME versus A PLIABLE OPPONENT AGAINST WHOM HE CAN CONTINUE GETTING HIS FEET WET.

Run Defense vs Central Florida

SLIGHTLY MISSPELLED PREVIEW

This could be pretty interesting. Scott Frost has brought a wide open spread offense to Orlando and along with Colorado this is going to be as good a proxy for Ohio State as Michigan plays this year. This is "not at all good at all," but we'll get a glimpse into Michigan's general approach against a spread to run offense run by a guy who knows what he's doing. Brown's not going to pull all the evil little vials out of the drawer but the framework is the framework.

Right, UCF. They rushed for 3.7 yards a carry against SCSU (not that SCSU). So maybe not that interesting. Also starting right guard Chavis Dickey managed a –7.0 per Pro Football Focus. That means he was as bad against SCSU as Ryan Glasgow was good against Hawaii. Also they had two other starting linemen and their-most-used tight end end that game with significantly negative grades. So definitely not that interesting. 

Quarterback Justin Holman picked up a positive rush grade and had 49 yards on 9 carries; Ace thought he was fast in a straight line and liable to fall over if asked to change direction. The previous regime didn't think much of his ability to move: he had 140 rushing yards last year, and in 2014 he managed to rush 112 times for 189 yards. Sacks, yes. I be like dang.

UCF's running backs are just guys.

Michigan's defensive line will crush this OL, which is coming off a struggle against a very bad I-AA team, even without Taco Charlton and Bryan Mone. This game will test their soundness against zone read stuff and that may break UCF a solid run or three—Rashan Gary got lost on a zone read against Hawaii—but if Michigan doesn't get fooled on any particular play UCF will be picking their teeth off the turf and hoping the ones they stick back in their mouth aren't Dickey's. That might be contagious.

KEY MATCHUP: IT'S EARLY YET versus DON BROWN's WACKY SCHEMES. UCF will test Michigan's assignments.

Pass Defense vs Central Florida

this isn't going to go well

Holman is coming off a season where he completed 50% of his passes for 5.6 YPA, 7 TDs, and 14 INTs. Think Steven Threet with twice the interception rate. Yeah.

Ace packed it in after one half of charting because I told him to, and because further exposure to Holman's passing may qualify as an OSHA violation:

Reminder: this happened against FCS competition.

Opponent	DO	CA	MA	IN	BR	TA	BA	PR	SCR	DSR
South Carolina State	0	3 (1)	1	5** (2)	2**	4	1	3	1	25%

That might be the worst half I've seen from a passing perspective, especially given the level of competition. Holman didn't get a lot of help from his O-line, but he exacerbated that by holding onto the ball too long in the pocket, and on a couple occasions he sensed pressure that wasn't there and scrambled for minimal gains.

That is a suboptimal start, and then the UCF offensive line gave up three sacks to SCSU (not that SCSU). They were actually all right last year—48th in adjusted sack rate—at protecting their terrible, terrible quarterback, for what little that was worth. They kept rotating OL and were utterly awful in all other stats so that was probably an artifact of throwing the vast majority of their passes at or near the line of scrimmage. Yes, this brings up many questions about the completion percentage. No, I cannot answer them.

UCF's wide receiver corps might be decent or better. They get back a couple now-juniors. One of them, Tristan Payton, is a former four star who tackles peeping toms when not catching just half his targets probably through no fault of his own. They added Dredrick Snelson, a 3/4 star borderline guy who was briefly on Michigan recruitniks' radars, and Tre'Quan Smith got 90 targets a year ago. He caught 55% of them, again probably through no fault of his own. For a Group of Five team, let alone a direly abject one, there's a lot of athletic talent out there.

It would be a major upset if this mattered one iota.

KEY MATCHUP: JUSTIN HOLMAN versus NOT IN THE FACE. Sorry buddy but it's going in the face.

Special Teams

UCF sophomore kicker Matt Wright is 17/21 in his career and 7 of 9 from beyond 40, so he'll be a good bet to ruin a shutout.

KEY MATCHUP: PUNTING versus NAH

Intangibles

Cheap Thrills

Worry if...

• Kyle Kalis misses some assignments, because we want week one to be real.
• Wilton Speight doesn't build on his week one performance by compressing his crappy period into less than one play.
• This is competitive at all.

Cackle with knowing glee if...

• Just about anything happens
• Peppers gets a returnable punt or four
• They pull out the Kaiju package against this front seven

Fear/Paranoia Level: 1 (Baseline 5; -1 for OL Struggles Against Not That SCSU, –1 for QB Seems To Be Christian Hackenberg Except Inaccurate, –1 for 0-12, –1 for Dang Dickey, –1 for Front Seven Represents The Lollipop Guild, +1 for History That Has Nothing To Do With This Team Or Program That We Will Nonetheless Honor By Writing An Actual Preview)

Desperate need to win level: 10 (Baseline 5; +1 for What Is This, The Hoke Era?, +1 for Bigger Point Spread Upsets Than The Horror Are Bad, Mmkay, +1 for I Guess We Should Get Revenge On Scott Frost For Being A Normal Person Acting Normally, +1 for Changing Their Name From "Citronauts" Is A Sin That Must Be Punished Forever, +1 for SERIOUSLY. CITRONAUTS.)

Loss will cause me to... wake up on August 31st, 2007, saying "I had the strangest dream…"

Win will cause me to... scour every bit of film looking for hints as to Michigan's national title viability.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:

A close, hard-fought contest for the first 30 seconds.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• Evans goes over 100 yards again, in the first half.
• UCF takes 22 minutes to get a first down.
• Michigan, 47-0