McKenzie Milton’s first collegiate appearance was a heady mix of talent flashes and potential disaster.
A true freshman inserted into a game with Maryland, Milton dazzled at times as he dragged UCF, a team that hadn’t won a game the year prior, into overtime against the Terrapins throwing for 260 yards and three total touchdowns. But, along the way, Milton also fumbled six times and tossed an interception in a 30-24 2OT loss.
“I just remember the game moving very fast,” Milton told 247Sports this week.
Milton, one year later, is the nation’s leader in completion percentage (72.9%), passer rating and has thrown 19 touchdowns against three interceptions. The sophomore, a former three-star prospect from Hawaii, is also the starter on a 7-0 Knights team.
But ask Milton what’s changed, and the sophomore insists the gambler in his personality remains. An extra year in Orlando has just helped forge him into a better version of himself.
“The guy that wants to make plays is still there,” Milton said. “I think it’s just a smarter version.”
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Milton’s rise corresponds in step with UCF’s under Scott Frost.
Frost inherited a 0-12 team following the 2015 season. Last year, with Milton taking over under center after the Maryland game, the Knights finished 6-7 and reached a bowl. A year later, despite Hurricane Irma displacing the team for two weeks, the Knights are undefeated and ranked No. 18 in the country heading into a road game with SMU (7:15 p.m., ESPN2) on Saturday.
UCF is the only remaining undefeated Group of Five team, and they’ve beaten opponents by a 40-point average margin of victory. On the season, Milton is averaging a staggering 11.3 yards per attempt, tops in football.
Yet as the blowouts continue and the passing yardage gets gaudier, the UCF coaches are reticent to heap too much praise on the young QB.
“Ultimately, he’s doing his job,” UCF quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco told 247Sports. “I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about. What is he supposed to do, throw the ball in the dirt?”
A three-star prospect in 2016 class, the Knights flipped Milton from Hawaii in large part because of Frost. Milton, like many Hawaiian quarterbacks, grew up worshiping Marcus Mariota. Milton would watch every Oregon game, and he wanted to be like Marcus. So when Frost, Mariota’s OC with the Ducks, went to UCF, flipping for Milton wasn’t all that hard.
Verduzco had a short amount of time to evaluate Milton, but he’d worked with Frost before and knew what type of quarterbacks Frost sought while in Eugene. And while Milton wasn’t the prototypical size (5-foot-11) of a Mariota (6-foot-4), Verduzco saw many of the same traits.
“He reminded me of the players that played at Oregon,” Verduzco said. “Maybe not in terms of statue, but in terms of how he played the game: quick, fast and agile. You could tell because of the tempo he was a quick blinker – fast minded. … He played the game with a lot of passion.”
Milton made plenty of plays that showed off his mobile, daring skillset – check out this overtime pass (at the 2:43 mark) against Maryland in the video above – but he also made plenty of mistakes. In an offense that prioritizes ball control, Milton threw seven interceptions in 10 games and completed just 57.7 percent of his passes.
He wasn’t playing outside of the framework of the offense. But everything was new, and Milton strained to make things happen.
“Those (mobile) guys are like artists to some degree,” Verduzco said. “And you don’t want to remove the kid’s stinger or anything like that. But it’s being cautious and smart. Having an understanding that (quarterbacks) have the fate of the team in their hands every snap – take care of the ball.”
For Milton, improvement this offseason came in a number of phases.
First, he put on eight pounds of weight to help endure the punishment of the FBS game. Second, and probably most important, he gained a better understanding of UCF’s offense. Last year, everything Milton saw in Orlando was new. The system, the coverages and the demands, he had no memory bank to combat that. But with an additional year of experience, he’s been able to dissect and digest coverages better. That leads to shrewder play.
Third, and the most football-specific, is a slight shift in his throwing motion.
Milton might be on the smaller side at under 6-foot, but his release helps make up for it. A former baseball catcher, Milton’s throwing arc is compact but generates above-average force. The windup finishes only a bit behind his shoulder, and then Milton whips through. It’s a repeatable motion that Milton does well on the run. But Milton had a tendency to have the ball sail on him a year ago.
This offseason, Verduzco, who has a master’s degree in biomechanics, targeted the issue. Over-the-top throwers generate their force by leaning to the left and aligning their elbow/humerus with the shoulder joint. But, when the ball sailed on Milton, his elbow flared about two or three degrees off the ideal alignment.
Wholesale changes weren’t the prescription.
Instead, QB coach and QB worked on it every day after practice to eliminate the habit.
“It was going to get corrected eventually,” Verduzco said. “For the most part, we got it corrected. He has a unique way of generating that thrust.”
The result of all of those changes is just the most accurate quarterback in the country.
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Mariota texted Milton before his first career start a year ago.
Milton is not Mariota – a Heisman winner and future No. 2 overall pick – but he is the latest Frost QB to find success. He’s also the latest QB under Verduzco to make a huge first- to second-year leap. At Northern Iowa, where he served as the quarterback coach or offensive coordinator form 2001-2014, five of Verduzco’s quarterbacks were named either Freshman of the Year or Newcomer of the Year.
One of those players, Eric Sanders, still holds the FCS career completion percentage record (69.6%).
“Our young freshman quarterbacks would come in and be tremendous performers as redshirt freshmen, no doubt about it,” Verduzco said. “It’s only because of the work we’d do during the season and the offseason with their drills.”
Milton isn’t the only reason for UCF’s surge.
He’s quick to point an offensive line that’s surrendered the fifth-fewest sacks in the FBS a year after the group finished 108th nationally: “They’re everything,” Milton said. It also helps that the entire offense is humming – PFF College gives 17 UCF offensive players a grade of 70-plus this season.
But, when it comes down to it, Milton is the offensive triggerman.
“(It’s) the new experience coupled with understanding,” Verduzco said. “‘Hey, just do your job. Don’t do the running backs job. Don’t do the receivers job. Don’t do something that’s not there. If you’ve got to throw the ball away, throw the ball away. Just do your job.
“Ultimately we knew that piece of it would come around.”
Milton’s doing his job. He’s just doing it better than most.