“The tower is going up. The money is committed. The schedule is as friendly as it’s going to get. This is the year it has to work.”
There’s a version of Scott Frost’s return to Orlando that was always going to look like this before it looked like anything else. A 5-7 season. A roster built from 63 newcomers, more than half the team, trying to find its footing in a conference that doesn’t slow down for anyone. A bowl invitation nobody really wanted, from a system that had run out of willing takers and needed a warm body to fill a slot.
UCF didn’t deserve to be in a bowl game. Five wins and seven losses is not a bowl-eligible record, and the program knew it. By the time the Birmingham Bowl came calling, the players had already been sent home for the holidays and the quarterback room had scattered to the portal. The staff made the right call. Decline it, redirect the energy toward the transfer window, and treat 2026 as what it actually was always going to be: the real launch point.
Year One was a foundation. A hard, ugly, necessary one.
But context matters here. Frost came in with very little runway to build the roster he actually wanted. The recruiting cycle was compressed, the NIL infrastructure was still being restructured, and the result was a team that reflected those limitations out on the field. You could see it in the offense especially. This wasn’t Frost’s offense. It was Frost trying to make something work with pieces that didn’t quite fit his system, managing his frustration in public while privately knowing that Year Two was always going to be the real test.
UCF went 5-2 at home last season and 0-5 on the road. They lost a lot of close games. When you break those losses down, the same themes keep surfacing: inexperience, injuries, a quarterback room that never got stable, and a receiver corps and offensive line that simply weren’t good enough to finish drives against Big 12 competition. The defense, to its credit, held its own all year. The offense and the trenches were the story.
And then, in the middle of it all, offensive line coach Shawn Clark died. Mid-season, with a thin and struggling O-line already trying to find its footing in the Big 12. The program grieved and kept playing, because that’s what you do. But you can’t fully separate that loss from what happened on the field in the back half of 2025. The offensive line didn’t just lack talent and experience. It lost its coach.
Now comes year two. And the question is whether Frost finally has enough to run the offense he’s been waiting to run.
The Offseason the Program Needed
Thirty transfers in. Thirty-four out. A general manager running portal operations full-time. Three new position coaches signed before January was over.
This is what a program looks like when it stops surviving and starts building.
The most important structural move UCF made this offseason had nothing to do with recruiting. It was formalizing the role of Trent Mossbrucker as General Manager of Football Player Personnel, a dedicated front office function that treats the transfer portal the way it deserves to be treated: like a second roster construction window that runs parallel to everything else. Modern college football programs that don’t operate this way are already falling behind. UCF is catching up.
The coaching additions were targeted and coherent. AJ Blazek takes over the offensive line after building disciplined fronts at Wisconsin. UCF led the Big 12 in penalties last season, pre-snap errors and holding calls and self-inflicted wounds in close games, and Blazek’s entire professional reputation is built on eliminating exactly that.
Will Johnson came from North Dakota State to run the defensive backs room, and before he left, he did exactly what UCF needed him to do. He identified and signed six defensive backs through the portal window, including Jailen Duffie, an All-MVFC corner who followed him from Fargo. Then, less than two months into the job, the Minnesota Vikings came calling and Johnson was gone. UCF heads into spring practice searching for its third defensive backs coach in two years. It’s an annoying subplot, but the players are here, the class is built, and whoever takes the job inherits a secondary that’s already been stocked.
Then there’s Cooper Bassett handling tight ends, which sounds like a minor addition until you realize what it actually does. With Bassett owning that position group, offensive coordinator Steve Cooper gets to be a coordinator, reading defenses, managing tempo, calling plays, instead of splitting his attention between a position room and a playbook. These are the kinds of structural decisions that don’t show up in any box score but quietly determine whether an offense functions or flails.
The Quarterback Problem Is Solved. Probably.
Let’s not pretend the 2025 quarterback situation wasn’t a slow-motion disaster. Tayven Jackson transferred out. Jacurri Brown transferred out. Cam Fancher transferred out. Davi Belfort transferred out to James Madison, of all places. The depth chart at the most important position in football had cratered completely.
Alonza Barnett III is the answer to all of that, and he might be something more: the quarterback who finally lets Frost run the offense he’s been drawing up in his head.
He comes from James Madison as the 2025 Sun Belt Player of the Year: 2,806 passing yards, 23 touchdown passes, 589 rushing yards, 15 rushing touchdowns. He has played in the College Football Playoff. He has won games that mattered in hostile environments. His skill set, dual-threat and dangerous on the move, fits Frost’s spread option the way few quarterbacks actually do. The hope isn’t just that Barnett is an upgrade at the position. It’s that he’s the unlock.
The honest caveat: JMU isn’t the Big 12. His interception rate has been a problem, and Big 12 defensive coordinators will have full film before the season opener. The translation is real work, not guaranteed. But after two years of watching UCF cycle through quarterbacks like a revolving door, having a guy, a proven and decorated starter, changes the entire ceiling of this offense.
The supporting cast is there. Duane Thomas Jr. returns as the team’s leading receiver (53 catches, 528 yards last season). Dylan Wade is back at tight end coming off a record-setting year. And Waden Charles, who turned in an impressive freshman outing in 2025, is a name to watch as he enters his sophomore season with a full year of Big 12 experience under his belt. The receiver room still needs to be better in 2026 than it was in 2025, and that’s not a small ask, but there’s more to work with than there was a year ago.
The question isn’t whether Barnett is good enough. It’s whether the line in front of him can give him time to prove it.
One more name worth mentioning before moving on: Rocco Marriott, the 89-rated quarterback out of Kansas City, is one of the highest-rated recruits UCF has signed in years. Nobody expects him to play in 2026. He’ll redshirt, take reps in spring camp, and develop behind Barnett. But his arrival matters as a signal — that the program can still land real talent, and that someone is thinking about what this offense looks like after Barnett is gone.
The Edge Problem Is Not Solved. Yet.
Malachi Lawrence was the best player on UCF’s defense last year. All-Big 12 First Team, he turned in one of the strongest combine performances of any edge rusher in the 2026 class, alongside Nyjalik Kelly, his running mate who also impressed evaluators. Together, they were the engine of everything Alex Grinch wanted to do defensively. Replacing that production isn’t a depth chart swap. It’s a genuine program challenge.
The portal additions are bets, not certainties: Bruno Dall (Akron, All-MAC Third Team), Ken Talley, and LA Jessie Harrold. Dall had 44 tackles and real pass-rush flashes in the MAC. Whether that translates against Big 12 offensive tackles is the question that will follow this defense into October. Interior depth is addressed with Thomas Collins (Oregon State) and Brad Gurley Jr. (Eastern Kentucky), and Horace Lockett, who looked like a potential star before a pectoral injury shut down his 2025 season, returns as the anchor.
What makes this worth cautious optimism rather than quiet dread: Grinch is back for year two. His “Speed D” concept showed genuine flashes in 2025, none more convincing than the West Virginia Homecoming game: seven sacks, 13 points allowed, the kind of performance that reminded everyone why they were excited about the hire in the first place. A full offseason of scheme installation, a healthy Lockett, and six new defensive backs gives Grinch real tools to work with.
The pass defense, remarkably, was already excellent. UCF allowed 185.1 passing yards per game last season, one of the best marks in program FBS history. The 2026 defense doesn’t need to be rebuilt. It needs to get more dangerous up front.
The Specialist Situation Is Actually Interesting
Special teams doesn’t get written about enough, and it costs teams games constantly. UCF lost Noe Ruelas, an All-Big 12 Third Team kicker reportedly headed to the NFL Draft, and rather than patch the position, the staff rebuilt the entire operation. Will Stone (Texas, 139 career touchbacks) handles kickoffs. Atticus Bertrams (Wisconsin, 41.5 yards per punt in the Big Ten) handles punting. Kyle Hicks comes in as long snapper.
A new snapper, a new punter, and a new kicker operating together for the first time in September is a legitimate risk. The kind of thing that doesn’t matter until it suddenly decides a game in November. The upside is that each of these guys has Power Four or high-volume experience. The work is in the cohesion.
The Schedule Sets Up Better Than It Ever Has
Three years into the Big 12 experiment, UCF finally catches a break on the schedule.
The two projected conference heavyweights, Texas Tech and Utah, are both off the slate entirely. UCF opens Big 12 play at home, hosting TCU on September 26, the first time the Knights have had that luxury since joining the conference. The bye week lands on October 17, perfectly positioned between the two most dangerous road games on the slate, at Houston (Oct. 3) and at Oklahoma State (Oct. 10), before the back end of November.
The non-conference slate offers something worth watching too. The opener against Bethune-Cookman on Thursday night, September 3 is a soft launch: 30 transfers playing their first game in black and gold, the new Roth Tower looming behind them, the crowd trying to remember what it felt like to be excited about this program. The game that actually matters is Week 2 at Pittsburgh. Pitt ended UCF’s 25-game winning streak in 2019, and that scar hasn’t fully healed. Winning in Pittsburgh, on the road against a Power Four program, would be a statement that 2025’s 0-5 road record was about youth, not character.
The final stretch is where the season either arrives or doesn’t. BYU and Baylor at home in late October. At Kansas in early November. Arizona State, Iowa State, and at Colorado closing it out. UCF needs to protect its home field and steal one road game it isn’t supposed to win. That’s the formula for eight wins.
| Date | Opponent | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Sept. 3 (Thu) | Bethune-Cookman | Home |
| Sept. 12 | at Pittsburgh | Away |
| Sept. 19 | Georgia State | Home |
| Sept. 26 | TCU | Home |
| Oct. 3 | at Houston | Away |
| Oct. 10 | at Oklahoma State | Away |
| Oct. 17 | BYE | — |
| Oct. 24 | BYU | Home |
| Oct. 31 | Baylor | Home |
| Nov. 7 | at Kansas | Away |
| Nov. 14 | Arizona State | Home |
| Nov. 21 | Iowa State | Home |
| Nov. 28 | at Colorado | Away |
The Roth Tower and What It Actually Means
The $90 million Roth Tower expansion at FBC Mortgage Stadium will be done in July, just in time for the opener. Club space up 256 percent. Thirty-four new open-air Sky Suites. More shade over the bowl. If you’ve ever baked through a September afternoon in Orlando, you know that’s not a luxury amenity. It’s a basic act of mercy toward the fanbase.
But here’s the part of this story that doesn’t get told enough: most of that money isn’t coming from UCF or its donors. It’s coming from Orange County’s Tourist Development Tax, the 6% levy on hotel stays and short-term rentals that funds tourism-related infrastructure across the region. UCF made a compelling case to county commissioners that a better stadium drives more events, more visitors, and more economic activity in one of the most tourism-dependent counties in the country. The commissioners voted unanimously. The county committed $10 million a year for nine years. That’s $90 million in public tourism dollars going toward a football tower, and it’s one of the more creative pieces of institutional financing in recent college athletics history.
It’s also a financial story in the broader sense.
UCF committed to the maximum allowable revenue share under the House v. NCAA settlement: $20.5 million annually, directly to student-athletes. The Kingdom NIL collective shut down last June and folded its donor base into the university’s internal Competitive Success Fund. The operating budget has reached $121 million. Fifty-plus corporate partners, including Orlando Health and Addition Financial, are providing NIL opportunities outside the revenue-share cap.
The program is no longer operating like a Group of Five school that got invited to a Power Four party. It’s operating like it belongs there. The Roth Tower is the most visible symbol of that ambition.
But here’s the part that stings a little: just when UCF started to get its financial footing, the goalposts moved again. The House settlement and the revenue-sharing era didn’t level the playing field. In some ways they tilted it further. The programs with the deepest pockets and the biggest alumni bases can now spend more directly than ever before. Texas Tech has been notably aggressive about it, building a war chest that makes no pretense about what this era is. UCF, for all its growth, is still catching up. The $20.5 million maximum is the same for every program. What isn’t equal is the booster infrastructure behind it. Knight Nation has to show up financially in a way it never has before, or this era of genuine Big 12 competitiveness gets a lot harder to sustain.
What This Season Actually Means
Scott Frost is 5-7 at UCF in this second stint. The fanbase has been patient, mostly, because patience was the reasonable response to a roster that wasn’t fully his to begin with. That patience has a shelf life.
There are real questions that follow Frost, separate from the wins and losses. Questions about how he handles pressure, how he communicates through adversity, whether the version of him that won a national championship at UCF in 2017 is the version that shows up when things get hard. Those questions haven’t gone away. He wants to win here, genuinely, and that counts for something. But wanting it and managing the weight of it are two different things, and Knight Nation has learned not to assume they’re the same.
What 2026 demands is straightforward: compete on the road, protect the home field, and show that a fully-assembled offense with a legitimate quarterback looks different than what we saw in 2025. The offensive line has to take a real step forward. The edge rushers have to produce without Lawrence and Kelly. And this team has to learn how to win close games, because that’s what the 2025 season took from them one at a time.
Barnett changes what’s possible. Marriott’s arrival signals something worth building toward. The defense is already ahead of where most expected it to be.
But the program is at a crossroads that’s been coming since the day UCF accepted that Big 12 invitation. The tower is going up. The money is committed. The schedule is as friendly as it’s going to get.
This is the year it has to work.
Knight Nation has been waiting for a reason to believe again. Now it’s time to give them one.
Sources: UCF official schedule and transfer portal central; UCF All-Big 12 honors release; UCF staff directory; 247Sports recruiting and transfer tracker; Will Johnson to Minnesota Vikings; UCF NIL/revenue share reporting.