Wednesday will be Alan Gooch's first game as a head coach.
But not the way the longtime UCF assistant hoped.
Gooch was named interim coach when Mike Kruczek was dismissed Nov. 10 after Eastern Michigan's 19-13 win dropped UCF to 3-7.
He will make his debut 7 p.m. Wednesday against Marshall at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. But after two decades of working together, Gooch said watching his mentor leave wasn't easy.
"When you work together for 19 years as Mike Kruczek and I did, obviously it was a rough day to separate," Gooch said. "But we all understand the nature of the business from a coaching and a player standpoint. Sometimes these things happen."
Gooch said his coaching staff has used practice as therapy.
"We've tried to get back into the structure of practice to prepare for a great Marshall team," he said. "We're trying to do the small things, control what we can control and try to learn a life lesson about handling adversity."
SUSPENDED: Redshirt freshman linebacker Chad Breeden was suspended for the remainder of the season for violating team rules. He is the sixth UCF player suspended in the past two weeks.
FLAGGED: At least one team has something to play for in Saturday's 24th annual Florida Classic: a Division I-AA at-large playoff berth.
Or so Bethune-Cookman hopes. Before the Wildcats can defeat Florida A&M a second straight time, they must shore up a glaring weakness: penalties.
B-CC averages 96.8 penalty yards to lead the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and is second in penalties with 97 to Delaware State's 105.
"That always seems to come up," coach Alvin Wyatt told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. "Over the past six years we have been the winningest football team in the MEAC, but over the past six years we have also been the most penalized.
"I'll tell you what we do; we always game plan for about 109 yards of penalties because that's what we average, and for some reason or another our kids always seem to be doing the wrong thing at the wrong time."
Take return specialist Ricky Williams. In last weekend's 21-7 win over Howard, he flattened a Howard punt returner after he called for the fair catch. The kicking penalty and personal foul gave Howard 30 yards. At game's end, the Wildcats were flagged seven times for 89 yards to the Bison's one for 15 yards. Williams was benched by Wyatt.
Yet the Wildcats still are one of the MEAC's most successful teams, ranking first in scoring offense and second in scoring defense. At 8-2 B-CC is second in wins behind MEAC champion North Carolina A&T (10-1) and tied for second in the standings with South Carolina State at 5-2.
STALLED: Rattlers coach Billy Joe's once-vaunted Gulf Coast Offense sputtered again in last weekend's 27-15 loss to South Carolina State.
FAMU rolled up 418 yards, outgaining SCS by 13, and had more first downs at 28-17. But the Rattlers turned the ball over five times and were 5-of-17 on third down and 2-of-4 on fourth down. Could the bye week have left FAMU rusty?
"It may well have been the time off, but we just missed too many opportunities," Joe told the Tallahassee Democrat. "We had dropped passes, miscommunication, penalties, just a lot of mishaps at the most inopportune times. The bottom line is that we just didn't play well enough to win."
SOLD OUT: The Florida Classic sold out Monday. Kickoff is 4 p.m. at the Citrus Bowl. Last year B-CC beat FAMU 37-10 in front of 70,201 to end a seven-year losing streak and clinch its first postseason berth. The Rattlers lead the series 43-12-1.
- Information from other news organizations was used in this report.
