Frost pleased with camp, focus soon will shift to first game
Camp Frost came to a final wrap with a situational scrimmage Thursday morning.
UCF has a light day scheduled for Friday before reassembling on Saturday for the first practice in preparation of the Sept. 3 opener against South Carolina State.
By then, coaches will have made final decisions regarding starting positions and rotations, who earned a spot on the travel team and who will comprise the scout team.
Scott Frost didn't tip his hand, but did indicate depth chart questions typically answer themselves.
We may receive the depth chart on Sunday night with the release of UCF's weekly game notes. Otherwise, Frost's next availability will be Monday at the first of his weekly press conferences.
Here's everything he had to say following Thursday's practice:
On today's scrimmage:
"It was a modified scrimmage. We weren't live. It was a thud scrimmage. Then we manufactured a lot of situations. We've got to cover a lot of things to make sure our guys understand how to handle different game situations. They did a pretty good job with that."
On whether today was the final "camp" practice:
"Yeah. Today was all camp. Every install thing that we have in, they were still responsible to be able to run today. We have a slow day tomorrow, basically a long walk-through. We come back after tomorrow and start working on game plan for first game."
On whether he was happy with how the team responded in the preseason:
"I'm happy. The guys are giving us a ton of effort. We're a lot better team than we were when we started this deal. Today was the 22nd practice of fall camp. We've had 37 practices from the start of spring ball until now. 90 percent of the time it was awesome and we improved. There's been a couple little lulls when guys got tired and we didn't have the same energy. We've got to make sure to avoid that come the season."
On finalizing a depth chart and who the starting quarterback will be:
"With all the positions we'll get together today and tomorrow. We should be able to release a depth chart by this weekend."
On what he's learning about himself "personally:"
"I think if you get too set in your ways, sometimes you can be so regimented that you don't have a feel for what's best for the team. We've tried to make every decision based on what's best right now. We're going to live day to day and focus on today. Every single day I'm going to do what I think is best for the team today. Things will run a lot smoother in year two."
On the mindset of the team right now:
"I think they're focused. I just think they're worn down a little bit. That was kind of our plan, to push them through this point of camp. Now we're going to let them recover and start training for game one. A couple times we've had lulls. It's because the guys were beat down a little bit. That being said, we want guys who fight through no matter what."
On rotation for specialists:
"No. Again, we'll talk about all the spots today and tomorrow. I want all my coaches input. I think most of the hay is in the barn, at least for the first game. We'll make those decisions this weekend."
On the process of finalizing depth chart:
"Like I've said, I think the decisions make themselves. We're averaging 119 plays per practice. When you're getting that many reps, guys have a ton of chances to show what they can do. The competition shakes out on their own."