SIDELINE SCENE: Next coach at UCF must recruit better locally

The rap on train wrecks is that people can’t look away.

Unfortunately for UCF football, in the midst of an absolute train wreck of a season at 0-9, it might find itself to be the exception; people — fans — are looking away.

Perhaps the one thing the Knights have going for them now, following the departure of longtime coach George O’Leary, is the interest of hardcore fans and casual fans in the search for a new coach. 

It is an intriguing juncture for the program, as despite the depths to which the program has sunk within the context of this particular season, the program is still in much better shape than O’Leary found it in and is regarded as a good job opening.

It’s also an intriguing juncture because it is a chance for UCF football to hit “reset” on its relations with local high school football programs.

For all the positives that occurred under O’Leary’s watch, one prevailing notion from the high school football community here in Central Florida is that the Knights did a poor job of recruiting on the home-front. Sometimes UCF would be late to the party on a particular recruit, and other times baffled coaches would watch as their players were recruited away by out-of-state FBS programs — but not the one on the east side of town.

We could get bogged down in the reasons for why this might have been, but that trend officially becomes the past with O’Leary’s departure. What’s important now is that whoever is hired as his replacement understands the value of recruiting right here in Orange County and the surrounding areas.

Sure, there are players that are going to price themselves out of UCF’s range. There’s no shortage of players from coverage-area schools such as Olympia and Dr. Phillips who have been and will be recruited by Power-5 programs that are held in higher regard than the Knights. But what I don’t buy is this idea that kids automatically want to get away from their hometown — a reason that had been floated around before as one that might contribute to UCF’s inability to get kids to stay.

Quite the contrary, I think many kids would prefer to stay close enough where family and friends could still see them play but far enough away — UCF is at least a half-hour from the campuses of DP and Olympia — that they still get the experience of moving into a dorm and living on their own.

A local athlete who has been on the record saying playing for his hometown is a factor is Dr. Phillips senior ATH Jaquarius “Q” Bargnare. Bargnare was offered by UCF in September and went on the record with the Orlando Sentinel as saying that getting an offer from his hometown automatically catapulted the Knights into his top five. 

Perhaps his interest has waned as we continue to see the depths of the dumpster fire in east Orlando and with the possibility that assistant coaches that recruited him may soon, like O’Leary, not be with the program anymore.

But the new coach at UCF, whenever he is hired and whomever he might be, should make recruiting this area his top priority. In addition to getting some really good players, it helps create a built-in fan base — something evidenced by the boom in UCF fans in Oviedo after hometown hero Blake Bortles led the Knights to their peak in 2013.

Plenty of high school coaches will need to be contacted the next head man for UCF, and bridges will need to be rebuilt. Players recruited under O’Leary, too, will need to be reached out to following all the turmoil.

He’d probably do well to start by reaching out to a guy like Bargnare.