ORLANDO, Fla. _ With a week remaining before UCF begins preparation for its opener against Florida A&M, the Knights' coaches are still working to identify a starting quarterback.
While details about the ongoing competition between Brandon Wimbush, Quadry Jones and Dillon Gabriel remains a closely-guarded secret, the next few days should provide some clarity, according to UCF quarterbacks coach Jeff Lebby.
"We're not quite there yet. Today was a big day and tomorrow's going to be a big day," Lebby said following practice Friday. "Once we finish out camp and Sunday get in here and continue to review things and look at it over the whole body of camp and make a decision, hopefully at some point. But we'll be ready to go regardless."
Lebby said each the three candidates have shown vast improvement since the start of spring camp, summer workouts and throughout most of preseason camp. Much of that was on display during the team's two scrimmages.
"I saw execution. Guys understanding what we're trying to get done on every single snap in every single situation," Lebby said of the performance by the quarterbacks during Tuesday's scrimmage. "That's what we saw early offensively. We got into some situational things later in the scrimmage that weren't as clean for us, but we were just a lot cleaner and we operated as a standard that we're trying to operate at."
Lebby said it's been awhile since he's supervised a quarterback competition as close as the one at UCF.
"It's been a long time _ back in 2008 was my last one," Lebby said, recalling his time at Baylor. "It was Robert Griffin III and Kirby Freeman.
"It ended up really well," Lebby said with a smile, referring to the fact that Griffin went on to win the Heisman Trophy three seasons later in 2011.
The UCF quarterbacks have grown throughout the process, according to Lebby, but there also is more work that needs to be done.
What will it take for one of the three players to win the starting job?
"We want to call plays and know what's going to happen before it happens," Lebby said of the importance of consistency and ball protection. "Whoever does that and continues to do that is going to be the guy that ultimately walks out there on the 29th."
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