UCF Knights College Football Pregame Quote, 11/28/2022

First of all, we’re honored to be in the championship game playing Tulane at their place. They are a very impressive football team, offensively, defensively and special teams. Their head coach is one of the one of the best, along with their staff. So it’s going to be a good one. We’re familiar with each other, obviously, playing each other three weeks ago.

On the biggest hurdle UCF had to overcome to reach the championship game:

We’ve had a few ups and downs. We had our quarterback (John Rhys Plumlee) trying to stay healthy. We had a couple of issues with the backup coming in and doing a super job. So I just think overall our guys have played really good football to get to this point. Like I said, their goal all year was to be in the championship game and have a chance to win the championship. Now it’s here before them and so I’m just real proud of our team.

On Alec Holler’s touchdown catch at the end of Saturday’s game against South Florida:

It has a ‚Äòwow’ factor, there’s no doubt about that. We got a chance to watch it after the game on my phone, and the way that he caught the ball with one hand and he dragged his foot to hit the pylon in bounds ‚Ķ it’s not just a great catch but it’s a great catch in that moment. It helped us get us to the championship game so it was really good as it gets.

On Alec Holler’s background:

When I first got here, he was a walk-on, but the way he was performing on the practice field, I didn’t realize he was a walk-on probably until two weeks into spring ball. We put him on scholarship right after spring. He’s like a coach on the field. He plays our H-back position, which we give a lot of flexibility, and helps really give us information on how defensive ends and how defenses are playing. So he’s a really good blocker he does a lot of the dirty work. He doesn’t get a lot of credit for that.

On the current quarterback situation and John Rhys Plumlee’s status:

Today is our off day-to-day. (Plumlee) feels better than he did yesterday. The thing about it is he’s been dealing with this thing for a few weeks so the good thing is he knows how to properly manage it. So we’re just hoping each day he’ll feel better and better.

On Tulane head coach Willie Fritz:

I coached against Willie when I was at Auburn. His team was extremely tough. I think we won 20-something to 7, or something (24-6), but it was really a closer game than that, so I have a lot of respect for him as a coach. And then obviously we played him last year and we won at the end of the game – real close game – and of course this year. He’s got those guys that have been playing really good football for two, three, four years, got a veteran team, and they’re so good defensively. Offensively, they run the football, which I believe to win a championship, you have to do that, and so he’s a really good coach. I think they only won two games last year, but when they played us, it didn’t seem like a two-win team, so I knew they were going to be really good this year.

On the challenges of beating a team twice:

I think the biggest challenge is playing one of the top teams in the country on their home field. I mean they’re one of the best teams, I think, and we had to play well to beat them the first time. We really had to recover an onside kick. We have a little experience playing the same team in the championship game before, so hopefully that’ll help, but you just got to really put together your plans and be ready to adjust.

On Tulane RB Tyjae Spears:

He’s a phenomenal player and they do a really good job up front. The quarterback is a run threat too, so it presents a lot of challenges. But they’re committed to running the ball, and especially the last two weeks, and they ran it pretty good against us too, so that’s really a focal point. I mean we’ve got to stop the run and really try to contain him.

On the American Athletic Conference:

I’ve been very impressed. There’s a lot of balance. There’s probably more parity in college football than ever before and this conference has some real teams. And it’s week to week. It’s extremely hard to win and win on the road. There are some real impressive teams and I’ve been impressed with this conference.

On UCF in general:

You look at what success they’ve had over the past that decade, and a lot of these recent years with different coaches, I’m real blessed to be here. It always felt like if the right guy would get here, and stay here and be committed to building this thing, and not look at it as stepping stone, it could be one of the best jobs in college football. We’ve been here almost two years now and with how you can recruit Orlando, a really good place to live and go to school, and we’ve got a great administration, so everything is set up for the future.

On his message to his players in a championship game setting:

You just you need to play good clean football and need to turn it loose. I mean that’s really what this is about. It’s about the best players playing their best games in the biggest moments and so I’m really excited to watch our guys compete.

On momentum for next year:

Well, this is a big game regardless and then (this being the) last year in the conference that makes it bigger, and then of course (playing for a) really good bowl game – so there’s a lot on the line here. It’ll be big for us, big for our program, playing I think one of the better teams in college football. I mean they went to Kansas State and got after them pretty good too so it would be a big win for us.