How UCF can take over college football within 10 years

With a welcoming combination of coaching, recruiting and league play, the UCF Knights could get college football by the tail over the course of a decade.

As of late, the UCF football team has looked like one of the better CFB programs that the state of Florida has had to offer, and last season saw the Knights cement themselves as the best with their final record and, more importantly, their bowl win over the Florida Gators.

Those feats may not mean too much to some college football fans, though, as the Knights are nothing more than a Group of 5 talent, and The Sunshine State has struggled a great deal at the Power 5 level during Central Florida’s aforementioned streak of success.

However, with Florida still being an outstanding recruiting state, and with UCF football looking to join the weakening Big 12 Conference in 2023, could the Knights potentially become one of college football’s biggest names in about a decade’s time? If everything goes according to plan, the short answer to that question could quite possibly be affirmative.

Today, Central Florida holds a pretty healthy spot in the CFB totem pole. As previously established, the Knights just finished the 2021-22 season with a final record of 9-4. The only other Division I program in the state to finish on a higher note than that was the Florida A&M Rattlers of the FCS (9-3).

In other words, UCF football has already validated its claims of being the best FBS power in Florida until further notice, and their head coach is certainly capable of keeping them at such a prosperous level.

Gus Malzahn just concluded his first season with the Central Florida program, and he managed to make quite the impact while doing so. That should not come as a surprise to anyone, though, as Malzahn has had his fair share of success in the past.

Before taking over at UCF, Malzahn was a promising coach for the Auburn Tigers of the SEC. During his time there, he squeaked Auburn into the 2014 Vizio BCS National Championship Game against the Florida State Seminoles–a game that he almost won.

Beyond that, he was able to keep the Tigers generally formidable over the course of several years, along with showcasing an ability to compete with/upset big-name rivals like the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide. If Malzahn can manage to pull off all of that, surely he can handle whoever his Knights play. Speaking of which, who all will the Knights be playing in the near future?

The Big 12 will never be the same without Oklahoma and Texas

Sure, joining a Power 5 league like the Big 12 is never a cakewalk right out of the gate, but how bad could things possibly be for UCF five years from now?

Think about it: in 2027, Central Florida will have already held Power 5 status for multiple seasons. It’s a fair assumption that four years or so at that level would easily be enough to make the Orlando-based Knights, at the very least, a top-40 recruiting power.

As for the rest of the Big 12, both Oklahoma and Texas–by far the league’s biggest brands/recruiters–should both be kicking it in the SEC by then. This means that the biggest obstacles for UCF from a league play standpoint would still be in less-appealing recruiting markets and/or fail to be the biggest names in their states.

Let’s take a look at some examples. Are the Houston Cougars the biggest brand in Texas? No, the Longhorns are by a wide margin, but Baylor just won the Big 12, and SMU is on a steep rise. Does BYU have the state of Utah locked down? Nope. Utah just won the Pac-12 while Utah State won the Mountain West.

And the hiccups for UCF’s to-be Big 12 foes don’t even come close to ending there. OK State will always play second fiddle to the Sooners, Cincinnati will never be the big dawg in Ohio as long as the Ohio State Buckeyes are around, and I am yet to hear about any of these markets being more attractive than Orlando, FL.

This whole theory could easily sound far-fetched at first, but UCF football is already a rapidly-growing brand, with a proven head coach and an upcoming entry to the Power 5 that is relatively welcoming. If they play their cards right, the Knights could be a top-12 team in college football on an annual basis.