(Photo by Victor Tan / New Day Review)
The hiring of Josh Heupel as the new UCF Knights football coach was just the first step in the post-Scott Frost Era. On Monday, UCF announced the signings of six new football staff members, including an offensive-line coach, a cornerbacks coach and an assistant head coach.
Among the new additions is cornerbacks coach Corey Bell. Under new UCF defensive coordinator Randy Shannon at the University of Florida, Bell helped the Gators to a No. 30 pass defense in 2017. He coached two cornerbacks, Duke Dawson and C.J. Henderson, to All-Southeastern Conference Second Team honors this season. Bell also coached the secondary at Florida Atlantic University from 2014 to 2016 and served as the director of football operations under then-University of Miami head coach Shannon from 2007 to 2010.
Glen Elarbee will coach the offensive line. He was with Heupel at the University of Missouri the past two seasons and led an offensive line that helped the Tigers to the No. 13 and No. 7 total-yards offense in 2016 and 2017, respectively. In 2017, Elarbee’s O-line was seventh in sacks allowed and helped All-SEC First Teamer Drew Lock lead the 14th-best passing offense. Elarbee was nominated for the 2016 Broyles Award, an award given to the top assistant coach in college football, after helping an O-line that returned no starters.
In Willie Martinez, the Knights return one of their own. Martinez will join Heupel’s staff to coach the secondary and to serve as the assistant head coach after having served as UCF’s defensive coordinator and secondary coach from 1995 to 1996. This past season, Martinez coached the secondary at the University of Cincinnati. Before the Bearcats, he was with the Tennessee Volunteers from 2013 to 2016 in a similar role. Martinez has over 30 years of college-football coaching experience, first starting as a graduate assistant with the Hurricanes in from 1985 to 1986.
UCF and Heupel also added Kurt Schmidt as director of sports performance after previously serving in the same capacity at Missouri. Billy Ray Johnson joins the Knights as director of football operations, and Brandon Lawson will be the director of player personnel.
With Shannon, Bell, Elarbee and Martinez, Heupel has filled four of the Knights’ nine assistant-coaching positions.
This staff will not have any part in coaching the 2017 team in the 2018 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, as UCF is looking to retain most, if not all, of the previous staff for the bowl game.
For more on the Knights, as they prepare for the Peach Bowl and the transition to a new staff, follow Victor Tan on Twitter at @NDR_VictorTan.
[…] UCF Knights head coach Josh Heupel has wasted no time assembling his new staff. After adding six new staff members on Dec. 11, Heupel added eight more, four assistants and four support-role hires, per an official […]
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