It's hard to sell youth and inexperience excuses to UCF's first-year safeties coach Andrew Thacker.
When he was a redshirt freshman safety for Furman in 2004, he stared down the No. 1 FCS team in the country — Georgia Southern. Barely weighing 200 pounds soaking wet, he made a key stop his former teammate and current Paladins receivers coach Brian Bratton said set the tone for the entire game. Furman, then ranked No. 2 in the country, upset Georgia Southern with a 29-22 victory, forcing the teams to share the Southern Conference title.
"He was hard-nosed, athletic and he wasn't scared of much," Bratton said of Thacker, who was named the conference's freshman of the year in 2004.