UCF AD Terry Mohajir sees signs of growth in first Big 12 season
On a relatively cool December afternoon in Orlando, UCF athletics director Terry Mohajir found himself wandering the sidelines of the football practice fields.
The Knights were winding down one of their final home practices before traveling to Tampa to take on Georgia Tech in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl at Raymond James Stadium on Friday (6:30 p.m., ESPN).
It’s been a busy six months for Mohajir and the athletic department as the school transitioned to the Big 12 Conference on July 1. The excitement of moving into an autonomous conference has translated into record-setting marks for season tickets and fundraising.
Yet there were obvious growing pains for the football team, which lost its first five conference games before bouncing back to win three of its last four to become bowl eligible for the eighth straight season.
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Before the first game, Mohajir was asked what he thought success would look like for UCF in its first Big 12 season.
“I said a conference championship,” Mohajir said, recalling the conversation. “I said this was going to be a bridge year and people’s expectations needed to be realistic. You can’t out-athlete anybody in the Big 12. We’ve had really good athletes on the field and could out-athlete many teams, not everybody in our league [American Athletic Conference], but the majority of the teams.
“I said going to a bowl game in the first year in the Big 12 would be the floor.”
There were plenty of challenges along the way.
UCF played a difficult road schedule by traveling more than 17,000 miles with stops at Boise State (Idaho), Kansas State, Kansas, Oklahoma, Cincinnati and Texas Tech.
Three of the six losses were by two points or less and UCF led or was tied in the second half of five of those losses.
Even so, the Knights had exciting moments, including a 28-26 win over Cincinnati for the program’s first Big 12 win and a 45-3 rout of then-No. 15 Oklahoma State on Nov. 11.
“No one wants to win more than I do, but what I loved about this year is that even though we had some challenges, the coaches and the players never broke up as a team,” Mohajir said. “They stayed together. The coaching staff did a good job keeping the guys together. We continued to compete. We didn’t lay down and battled to the end.”
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Mohajir saw that the Knights need more talent and depth moving forward.
Off the field, Mohajir and his staff have been busy working on several projects, including the proposed football campus.
The athletic department recently received approval from Orange County officials for $96 million of Tourism Development Tax dollars to fund a new football stadium tower at FBC Mortgage Stadium.
The project has been on hold for almost eight months as the school worked with the county to secure the funding.
“We still have a lot of governance stuff to work through, internally in the university and then with the state,” said Mohajir. “But we’re looking at trying to get this thing up and going by the 2026 season.”
If all goes as planned, Mohajir believes work will begin on the new tower in the fall, with upgrades going on year-round.
“As of now, the plan is that it will never be out of use,” he added.
The new tower is expected to add 1,200-1,500 new seats to the stadium, opening things up for season-ticket holders to move from the premium area to the new tower.
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“Selling out 1,000 season tickets is not easy, but what it does is by building the tower, it allows people to move into new price points,” Mohajir said. “So people that may have been an entry-level or family-level price point move to a different price point and people in the premium price will move to a higher premium.”
Ultimately, as people move upward in their seating choices, it opens the door for cheaper entry-level tickets, making attending UCF games an attractive option.
“It allows our fan base, especially ones who just graduated, to get an affordable ticket to an entry point,” he added.
Fundraising is ongoing for the rest of the football campus, including moving the practice fields to create an entryway, additional parking and a promenade. Moving the two football fields could happen as early as the end of spring.
The additions should help UCF athletics as it continues progressing in the Big 12.
“We don’t have to have the most opulent facilities in the world. We have to have cool, indigenous facilities and we have to be very thoughtful of what we’re building,” Mohajir said.
Meanwhile, UCF hopes to wrap up the 2023 season with a bowl win Friday.
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Mohajir was excited for UCF to play in Tampa, approximately two hours from campus, in front of what is expected to be a large group of Knights fans. The school quickly sold out its allotment of tickets and is expecting a great turnout.
“We worked hard to try to get something in Florida if possible,” he said. “It’s a really good bowl and they do a great job. As I’ve maintained since I’ve been here, playing as many regional matchups as possible is important to us. Football is made to be played in front of people and sometimes you can’t control your destiny, but playing in Florida is huge for us.”
Email Matt Murschel at mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com or follow him on Twitter at @osmattmurschel.
