All Sooners

Oklahoma 2023 Schedule Preview: UCF

Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel will take on his former team as the Sooners take the field against the UCF Knights for the first time in school history this October.

Ryan Chapman

Tommy Gilligan / USA TODAY Sports
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As August closes in, AllSooners previews every game on the 2023 schedule.

Oklahoma’s 12-game regular season schedule features six home games, five road games and the annual neutral-site Red River Showdown.

OU quarterback Dillon Gabriel will face his old team in Norman as the Sooners welcome UCF to the Big 12.

Dillon Gabriel will have a tall task after potentially playing in his first Red River Rivalry game in 2023.

Oklahoma’s veteran quarterback won’t just get to turn the page from the Sooners’ most emotional contest of the season, he’ll have to prepare for a reunion with old friends.

For the first time ever, OU will meet the UCF Knights, Gabriel’s first home in college football.

The Sooner signal caller spent three years in Orlando, throwing for 8,037 yards and 70 touchdowns in 26 contests for UCF.

Thankfully for Gabriel, he’ll have OU’s bye week to mentally lock into the contest against his former school regardless of the result in the Cotton Bowl.

And Gabriel might need to play near the top of his game if Oklahoma welcomes UCF into the Big 12 with a classic shootout.

Knights coach Gus Malzahn produced another steady season in 2022, retooling the offense around Ole Miss transfer quarterback John Rhys Plumlee.

Get to Know UCF

Oct. 21, Norman

  • Series: No previous meetings
  • Head coach: Gus Malzahn, 3rd year (18-9, 11-5 AAC), 12th overall (94-47)
  • 2022 record: 9-5 (6-2 AAC)
  • 2022 offense: 16th overall (9th rushing, 57th passing, 31st scoring)
  • 2022 defense: 69th overall (78th rushing, 59th passing, 46th scoring)

In his first season in Orlando, Plumlee was a steady presence in the passing game, throwing for 2,586 yards and 14 scores while tossing eight interceptions.

But he was an even bigger piece of UCF’s running game, pacing the Knights with 862 yards on the ground and ending the year second on the team with 11 rushing touchdowns.

Plumlee paired with running back duo Isaiah Bowser and R.J. Harvey to form the ninth-best rushing attack in the nation.

Bowser departed in the offseason, signing with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent, but Plumlee and Harvey will hope to replicate their 2022 rushing output to power UCF’s first run through the Big 12.

Malzahn and Plumlee will have to reload in the passing game, as the Knights lost their leading receiver from 2022, Ryan O’Keefe.

FB - John Rhys Plumlee, UCF Knights
Quarterback John Rhys Plumlee spearheaded an excellent rushing attack in his first year at UCF.  :: Tommy Gilligan / USA TODAY Sports

The 5-foot-10 pass catcher hauled in 73 passes for 725 yards and five scores, but O’Keefe transferred to Boston College as a graduate transfer.

Javon Baker, UCF’s second-leading receiver, will look to build on his 56-catch, 796-yard season alongside Plumlee.

Defensively, the Knights were solid in 2022.

Though UCF was prone to giving up yardage in the running game, the Knights were able to find ways to limit the damage, finishing with the nation’s No. 46-overall scoring defense.

Oklahoma's 2023 Schedule:

But things will look a little different along both lines of scrimmage in 2023.

Malzahn, a veteran of the Southeastern Conference at Auburn, knows what it will take for UCF to continue to win while taking the step up from the American Athletic Conference into the Big 12 — talent along the line of scrimmage.

“We've worked extremely hard,” Malzahn said at Big 12 Media Days, “and I really feel like today going into fall camp that we do have quality depth on both lines of scrimmage, and that was really by design, and we really feel good about that.”

To compete, Malzahn targeted talent both in the high school ranks and with his 18-man transfer portal class.

UCF signed 4-star defensive lineman John Walker as a freshman, and then dipped back into the portal after spring football concluded to add Oklahoma transfer defensive lineman Derrick LeBlanc.

The real test for the entire UCF coaching staff will be if the Knights can get their young talent like Walker and LeBlanc up to speed to build quality depth by the middle of October, or if Malzahn’s team will be thin across the board hoping to avoid the injury bug.

Still, there will be plenty of opportunity for UCF to score in Norman.

The Sooners return the nation’s 99th-ranked scoring defense, something that is a major point of emphasis for Oklahoma to improve upon in 2023. 

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Ryan Chapman
RYAN CHAPMAN

Ryan is deputy editor at AllSooners and covers a number of sports in and around Norman and Oklahoma City. Working both as a journalist and a sports talk radio host, Ryan has covered the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the United States Men’s National Soccer Team, the Oklahoma City Energy and more. Since 2019, Ryan has simultaneously pursued a career as both a writer and a sports talk radio host, working for the Flagship for Oklahoma sports, 107.7 The Franchise, as well as AllSooners.com. Ryan serves as a contributor to The Franchise’s website, TheFranchiseOK.com, which was recognized as having the “Best Website” in 2022 by the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters. Ryan holds an associate’s degree in Journalism from Oklahoma City Community College in Oklahoma City, OK. 

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