UCF Loses Bortles and Johnson to NFL
The UCF Knights had the best season in school history in 2013 going 12-1 including a win over the Baylor Bears in the Fiesta Bowl. With only seven scholarship seniors on the roster, they could have been set up for another great season in 2014. But they soon found out what the other top college programs have known for years. Seniors who can play, rarely stay. The lure of the NFL is too much.
Blake Bortles and Storm Johnson are off to the NFL. These two combined for four rushing touchdowns and three passing touchdowns in the Fiesta Bowl win over the Bears. Now the Knights must replace them before going to Ireland for the season opener against the revenge minded Penn State Nittany Lions. William Stanback should be able to fill Johnson’s shoes. Bortles shoes will be tough to fill.
Many draft “gurus” have Bortles in the top three of the quarterbacks coming out. Teddy Bridgewater, Johnny Manziel and Bortles are ranked as the top three QBs in this draft and many feel they will all three go in the top five or ten picks. It’s hard to stay in school when there is top ten money awaiting you, so one can hardly blame Bortles. But with two picks on back to back passes in the Fiesta Bowl, one could see where he may have gotten even better with another season at UCF.
Johnson can tote the rock, but he sometimes has a hard time holding on to it. He was plagued by fumbles all season, coughing one up in the Fiesta Bowl as well as rushing for three touchdowns. If he thinks college defense can strip the ball, wait until he runs up against the pros.
UCF is trying to become one of the elite programs and this is part of it. They need to get a roster deep enough that when they lose stars early to the draft they have talent right behind them ready to fill in. Winning a big bowl game on New Year’s Day should help with that. Any high school players who were watching the Fiesta Bowl had to be impressed. This should make recruiting a bit more productive. But don’t look for the Knights to be sniffing a national championship in 2014. Quarterbacks like Blake Bortles don’t grow on trees.
Whoever the quarterback is next year for the Knights, he will have no experience and some awfully big shoes to fill. But the Louisville Cardinals and Rutgers Scarlet Knights will be off to new conferences so they could still be in the mix for another AAC Championship.
But Knights fans can take pride either way as Bortles and Johnson will have a chance to join Brandon Marshall, Matt Prater, Bruce Miller, Asante Samuel, Josh Sitton, and Duante Culpepper as UCF players who went on to success in the NFL. Hopefully they can equal or even surpass those guys.
