Camp Update with Josh Heupel
Five days in the books, UCF coach Josh Heupel wants to continue to see growth from his players as they head into their first scrimmage later in the week.
Here's everything he had to say during his weekly availability on Monday:
On the first five days of camp:
"I think there have been plays made on both sides of the ball, which to be honest is what you want. We've gotten in some situational work that our kids have handled well and and some young kids have an opportunity to learn from it as well so I like like the energy and I like the work that we're putting in."
On the versatility of Otis Anderson:
"He's so versatile. He's got the ability to do a lot of things and do it at a high level. He's dynamic with the ball in his hands, mostly as a ball carrier a year ago, some some catches out wide as well. He spent time in both of our meeting rooms. He's smart enough to handle doing that as well. So it gives us a lot of versatility in our no huddle."
His impressions of WR Tre Nixon:
"Fast. Competitive. The best thing about him to me and what we're trying to preach to all of our players is you've got to have the same mentality, same attitude. You've got to attack every day the exact same way. And he's done that. He's very consistent in his approach. Good fundamentally, great speed, but just as much as anything I think his maturity and how he competes every day is important."
On Nixon being eligible to play right away:
"Unique situation being able to be eligible. He's fitting in extremely well with the guys. I think he fits into our culture of what we're trying to build and will have a big year for us."
On the position group that has stood out:
"I think as much as anything, the first five days I'm really happy about the maturity, the growth in the way that our defensive backfield has really attacked every single play, every single day. Coming out of spring. I think that was something, not a concern, but that we really wanted to see them mature. Coach (Kurt) Schmidt in the weight room thought that they may have pushed harder or grew as much as any group that we had. And that's really showcased and shown up here during the the first five days of camp. It will be critical for that group to continue to mature that way. Their ability to handle adversity on game day, their ability to communicate, whether it's going really good or not, will be pivotal to our success."
On working with Randy Shannon:
"Everybody recognizes that name here. Obviously, his ability to recruit this state is pivotal during recruiting. Just going against him as much as I have in my career, his ability to create negative plays, to take away some of the easy game and put pressure on the offenses with his ability to be multiple, both coverage and pressures and everything that he's doing, causes issues. It's really good for us offensively. It's really helped our front five guys communicate and forced them to get on the same page. We're just really excited about what he's bringing to our defense, mentality wise.
"And then for me, as a head coach, having a guy that sat in that chair that understands some of the daily issues maybe that you have, and how to handle some of those unique circumstances. That's been really good for me as well.
More on whether Randy Shannon is a mentor:
"Yeah. I think any time a guy has sat in that chair, his ability to to help you, having gone through similar situations, gives you a unique perspective on how to look at it."
Whether early camp practices focused on broader or specific ideas:
"We won't get into game stuff here for a while. During spring ball, you try to introduce some of your base philosophy, some of your base schemes. You also are working on incorporating some things maybe they've done in the past. There's some things I've done in the past that I didn't necessarily do at Missouri because of our personnel. There's things we're grabbing from Oklahoma, that I ran back there and had a lot of success with it that fit our personnel here too. So I think you're trying to introduce them to that. You're trying to get them to understand the 30,000-foot view, understand the entire scope. And then as we get closer to a game week against UConn, then you'll start honing in on those schemes specifically."
On getting to know the players:
"We know our guys. We spent a ton of time with them just as people but also on the football side of it. So I think we have a pretty good understanding of where they're at. But you know, the challenge for myself, and the challenge for our coaches too, is every time they come back from a different quarter of our offseason, whether you finish the season and they come back for January, February, strength and conditioning, or they finished spring ball and they're coming back for summer, or they finished summer and they're coming back to you for fall camp, the challenge for you is you have to allow these 18 to 23 year olds to change who they are and how they approach it. And sometimes the light bulb comes on real quick for these guys, and they're dramatically different players, dramatically different people in how they handle things that you're trying to do to be successful on the field. So that's why you give training camp a full go. We'll have scrimmage here in a few days and the second one in a little over a week, 10 days or something like that. You want to see those guys compete, fight and try to earn a position. You got to give them the opportunity to do that."
On the overall health of the team:
"We need to stay on the course that we are. We're healthy. We haven't had any major bumps here in training camp yet. We're going to try to take care of them as far as how we practice, but we've got to work to get where we need to at the same time. The challenge for our young players in particular is learning how to play physical with great pad level and attacking every single rep the way that you need to, but still understanding that you gotta take care of each other at the same time and putting your body, if you're not in a good position, how to play and make sure you stay healthy. So that's something we've been trying to teach."
On OL Parker Boudreaux:
"He had a phenomenal offseason this summer, gained a lot of strength. He's a guy that's bought into the culture and works extremely hard. I like what he's doing up front. He's starting to move down guys and create really good double teams. He's going to play a lot of football for us."
On the goals of the upcoming week:
"We need a ton of growth here over the next couple of days. Our guys continuing to learn and understand our scheme. In particular, the young guys. Then you want to see them go out and compete when we do scrimmage and see how they handle being out there on the grass by themselves."
On what makes Tre Nixon unique:
"All of our players are a little bit different, but I think the maturity that he brings every single play, every single day, how he enters through the glass doors of our building, and his consistency is something we want in our program and he certainly brings that and helps provided a little bit of maturity to that room."
On McKenzie Milton:
"He's competitive. His grasp of what we're doing, his command of it, is really good for going into year one. We've said that year one can't be year one for us when we walk on the field against UConn. He's put in the work that he understands what we're doing and has total command. Highly competitive. When it's not perfect, the plays you draw, he's got the ability to create. That's something that will help us during the season."