ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF Knights baseball team held their annual media day Tuesday afternoon, with new and returning players speaking about how they are ready to compete for the 2026 season. The Knights are looking to make an NCAA tournament for the first time since making the Tallahassee Super Regional in 2024.
“We have to pitch at a high level to defend, and we’re going to have to be really, really versatile on offense,” UCF coach Rich Wallace said. “I think we have the pieces to do that. It’s just a matter of showing up when the time is right and putting that thing on display.”
Though the Knights finished with the best batting average and ERA as a team in the Big XII last season, they went 9-21 in conference play, the second worst record in the conference.
“I think there were some things in there that we just didn’t execute at the level we needed to,” Wallace said. ”I want our team to play at their full potential, and then I want them to do it consistently. Then you want to do it consistently, regardless of circumstance, and then maybe we can kind of surpass that potential. I think we reached our potential few times last year. We just didn’t do it consistently, and we didn’t handle some of the bumps on the roads with the maturity, toughness that I think this program is kind of built on. Our best teams that I’ve ever been around here, they were arguably the toughest team and the most resilient team on the field, and I didn’t think we did that. So we trained some of the stuff that we did in the fall, a little more team-based stuff, a little more, just the way that we went about it. Just focusing on it, not really changing much, but there’s a little more attention to detail on some of those other things. There’s 31 new players on this team last year, there was 20-something, and the year before there was 27. Continually changing. So trying to fight some of that stuff where it is so many new guys every single year.”
After last season, five Knights were selected in the MLB draft, and another 10 transferred, including pitcher Russell Sandefer, who went to Florida. UCF had to retool the roster. They did just that, finishing with the No. 12 high school class and the No. 40 class in the nation, with 31 new players joining the roster in the fall.
“It’s year-to-year,” Wallace said. “You better be able to adapt on a fly, address your needs, and treat every year as its own separate entity. It’s hard to really build for 3 to 4 years in advance. You just gotta try to build the best roster you can for this season. And with the development process in the back of your mind.”
One of those transfers, former Hagerty High School shortstop Austin Jacobs, returned home to Central Florida after a year at Clemson. Though he did not play in his lone season for the Tigers, Jacobs ranked as the No. 9 shortstop and the No. 40 player out of Florida, according to Perfect Game.
“It’s a weird thing with Austin since I’ve known a kid since he was little,” Wallace said. “I think I’ve recruited him four times and then this was kind of the last the last time to get him. I recruited him when he was in eighth grade, when I got to Florida State, he was in that recruiting class, so we had to keep him. And then when he decommitted from Florida State, we were trying to get him here again, and then he ends up at Clemson. We knew that he was going in. We heard about it, and then he went in, and I called him, and I said, ‘Are you done messing around? ‘You’re ready to be at night?’ He was like, ‘Yes, I’m ready to be a Knight.’ That was the extent of the conversation. He was ready to come home. He was ready to do this. He’s been great at all facets.”
“This is home,” Jacobs said. “ I feel more than at home. Like, this is awesome to me. I’m coming home and being able to play for my family and like people I’ve grown up with and then Coach Wally’s obviously from Orlando, too, like around here and it’s cool to see.”
Despite all of the departures, the Knights were able to retain their pair of star outfielders, right fielder Andrew Williamson and center fielder DeAmez Ross. Ross and Williamson were the two best bats for UCF last season as the duo had the top two averages on the team. Ross’ .359 average was the sixth best in the Big XII.
“We didn’t think for any stretch of our imagination that DeAmez Ross would be back,” Wallace said. “So it starts kind of at that point when you when you get a feeling that he’s back and how you kind of adjust that outfield.”
The Knights start the 2026 season with a three-game home series against the Sienna Saints before heading on a five-game road trip. UCF will be one of four teams in the Live Like Lou Jax College Baseball Classic, featuring the reigning National Champion LSU Tigers.
“We have a chance to go to Jacksonville and play in, if that was a regional, that would be considered a really, really tough regional on the road in a ballpark that’s not ours against three different opponents,” Wallace said. That’s preparing you for what they’re gonna see the rest of the way.”
First pitch against Sienna is set for 6 p.m. on Feb. 13.