UCF Linebacker Speaks Out On Move to FBS Level

The UCF Knights offense is not the only unit that is "UCFast," according to linebacker Cole Kozlowski.

Transferring in from Colgate, Kozlowski said following Monday's practice that the defense's speed stood out to him.

"Everyone flies around the ball," Kozlowski said. "Everyone wants to hunt. Everyone's excited to finally get going."

While he was one of the top tacklers in the FCS with 133 tackles, 66 of them solo, plus eight tackles for losses, 3.5 sacks and six passes, Kozlowski said he's been challenged to be a "more physical" guy in Orlando.

"At Colgate, I was definitely a little bit more of a finesse guy, and with Coach [Mark] D'Onofrio here, I gotta be a lot more physical, which I like, getting more hands on lineman and things like that," Kozlowski said. "I think it's definitely helped me as a linebacker."

Kozlowski said he got flashbacks to family vacations to Orlando when he came to visit UCF while he was in the transfer portal. He ended up clicking "right off the bat" with linebacker coach Mark D'Onofrio thanks to their shared New Jersey background. D'Onofrio hails from Hoboken, right across the river from New York City, while Kozlowski is from Spring Lake, over an hour's drive south down the Atlantic coast.

Thanks to those connections, Kozlowski now finds himself on the precipice of his first season playing FBS football.

"I'm looking forward to the excitement of the Bounce House," Kozlowski said. "I know I've been talking a lot with the UCF fans with all the signing day we did the other day, which was awesome."

The Knights' season-opener is on Aug. 28 against Jacksonville State.

"Everyone's excited," Kozlowski said. "There's a lot of anticipation, especially with a new coaching staff and new, kind of new, settlement coming in here, and I'm really excited to prove to everyone how good we could really be."

Scott Frost Sounds Off On Expanded College Football Playoff Discussions

It's a different College Football world from the one UCF coach Scott Frost left in 2022, even more so since he left UCF after the 2017 season.

However, more change might be on the horizon, with the Big Ten toying around with another expanded College Football Playoff model that features 24 or 28 teams and eliminating conference championship games. First reported by Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger, one such model under discussion is the “7-7-5-5-2-2” model, which is still in very early development and has not been introduced to the full CFP group, though Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey did hold a call about the idea.

The model would feature seven automatic qualifiers, each from the SEC and Big Ten, five qualifiers each from the Big 12 and ACC, two of the best Group of Six programs and two at-large selections, totaling 28 teams. This would make the College Football Playoff larger than the FCS Playoffs, which expanded to 24 teams back in 2013.

"I would say that these guys are still students, and we're getting farther and farther away from the model where they were amateur student athletes, but I find it hard to believe you can have a longer playoff with a conference championship game and the length of the season that we have," Frost said following Monday's practice. "So I hope they at least consider the stress they're putting on us, the coaches, but players and assistant coaches as well, and the amount of time that that would take. Obviously, I love it when things are decided on the field, and I don't have the right answer, so somebody smart is going to have to figure that out."

The Knights set out to try to make this season's College Football Playoff in the second year of its 12-team format, starting on Aug. 28 against Jacksonville State.

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