With spring practice set to kick off on March 4, UCFSports.com will take a look at the positional storylines heading into Josh Heupel's second season in Orlando.
There will be no bigger spotlight than at quarterback where UCF must replace McKenzie Milton, at least temporarily. The back-to-back American Athletic Conference Offensive Player of Year is expected to take a redshirt in 2019 while he continues to recover from a devastating leg injury suffered in the Black Friday victory at South Florida. The good news is subsequent surgeries have gone well, which has led to optimism for an eventual return though it's likely that wouldn't occur until 2020 at the earliest.
The Competition
The initial focus will likely center around two players: Redshirt sophomore Darriel Mack Jr., Milton's backup who started UCF's final two games in 2018, along with redshirt senior Brandon Wimbush, a graduate transfer from Notre Dame who joined the program in January.
A week after Milton's injury, Mack played arguably the best half of any quarterback in UCF history as he led the Knights to a 56-41 comeback victory against Memphis in the AAC Championship Game. Shaking off some early game miscues, Mack would go on to connect on 19-of-27 passes for 348 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for four additional touchdowns.
He came back down to earth somewhat - as did the entire offense - in the 40-32 loss to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl, completing 11-of-30 passes for 97 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
Though he has showed promise, Mack's sample size is small which is why the coaching staff deemed it necessary to pursue an experienced transfer. They landed one of the best ones on the market in Brandon Wimbush, who was looking for a new opportunity after losing the starting job at Notre Dame last season.
In 16 starts, Wimbush led the Irish to a 13-3 record and helped orchestrate their 2017 comeback to a 10-3 finish after a 4-8 season the year before. His final stat line at Notre Dame included 2,606 passing yards, 20 passing touchdowns, 1,155 rushing yards and 16 more scores on the ground.
With Wimbush as starting quarterback, Notre Dame averaged 32.3 points and 433.1 yards per game, plus 6.2 yards per play. Over the last two seasons, Notre Dame has exceeded 600 yards of total offense in a game three times and all three came with Wimbush under center.
Beyond Mack and Wimbush, there are a pair of promising younger players who will also be in the mix: Redshirt freshman Quadry Jones and true freshman Dillon Gabriel.
Jones, who starred locally at Jones High School, earned considerable praise from coaches during his first season at UCF. While he did maintain a redshirt by playing in four or less games, he did see the field in UCF's win at ECU, lining up at wide receiver and then throwing a 42-yard touchdown as part of a gadget play.
Gabriel was a highly-recruited member of UCF's 2019 recruiting class who enrolled in January. His initial recruitment was mostly under the radar as a prior commitment to Army, then he saw a surge of major interest as a senior with offers rolling in from the likes of UCF, Georgia and USC as he ended up taking official visits to those three schools.
At Hawaii's Mililani High School, Gabriel replaced McKenzie Milton as the Trojans' starter and went on to enjoy a record-setting career. His 9,848 all-time passing yards broke Hawaii's state record, eclipsing previous record-holder Tua Tagovailoa. On the field, his play is much like that of Milton with the only major difference being that he's left-handed.
Hayden Kingston, a redshirt junior and former Wake Forest transfer, also returns. His contributions have mostly been behind the scenes as the team's primary scout team quarterback and game day signal caller.
The Outlook
Due to his seniority in the system, Mack may begin the spring as "No. 1" on the depth chart though for competition purposes the staff will likely employ a frequent rotation to give the other quarterbacks time with the first team offense. For competition's sake, I'd imagine at some point it would become more of a 1A and 1B scenario between the top two. Even if there is a clear winner by the end of spring, I would not expect a "starter" to be officially named as coaches are becoming increasingly reluctant to award that status too early because of transfer concerns.
