The UCF Knights start the 2025 season — and Scott Frost’s first season back as head coach — at home against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks. Let’s get ready:
2024: 9-5, 7-1 C-USA, won the Conference USA Championship over WKU, 52-12, lost Cure Bowl in Orlando to Ohio, 30-27
Jacksonville State is entering its third year at the FBS level They are 18-9 since moving up, with two bowl appearances and a Conference USA title last year. Prior to that, Jax State had won eight conference titles in 12 years, including five straight in the OVC.
Last year they started 0-3 before ripping off eight in a row. The streak snapped against Western Kentucky, but then they boatraced the Hilltoppers the following week in the C-USA Championship Game.
However, they are in year one under new head coach Charles Kelly, after Rich Rodriguez left after three years to return to West Virginia.
Kelly is a career defensive assistant who, among other assignments over his 30+ years in the business, was the linebackers coach at Florida State during their 2013 national championship season and then was defensive coordinator there from 2014 to 2017. He was also the associate DC and safeties coach under Nick Saban at Alabama from 2019 to 2022, winning another national title in 2020.
Wimsatt is a transfer from Kentucky, where he spent 2024 after starting 19 games over three years at Rutgers. He has thrown for over 2800 career yards and run for another 800 but has never completed more than 50% of his passes in a season and has more interceptions (21) than TD passes (17) for his career.
Woods comes to Jax State after four years at Colorado. His best season was in 2023, when he posted 56 tackles (42 solo) with a half-sack, a forced fumble, and two picks while playing for Charles Kelly who was the safety coach under Deion Sanders that season. He moved to linebacker last year but only put up 14 tackles in four games before electing to redshirt.
The Florida State QB that day? McKenzie Milton.