Future UCF Knights Hall-of-Famers continues with another guy named Darin who played quarterback at UCF and is now teaching the craft as a coach.

Darin Slack

1984-1987

If you know your UCF Football history, then you know that before KZ and Blake, before Schneider and Daunte, even before Hinshaw, there was Darin Slack.

Slack is a Central Florida kid. He went to Lake Howell High School, and landed at UCF in 1984 under then-head coach Lou Saban.

After Saban resigned mid-season and interim head coach Jerry Anderson moved on, Gene McDowell took the helm in 1985, and Slack - and UCF - hit the accelerator.

Under McDowell and Slack, UCF went from 4-7 in Division II in 1985, to 6-5 in 1986, and then 9-4 in 1987, reaching the Division II National Semifinals before falling to Troy. Slack also aided Ted Wilson and Bernard Ford in becoming two of UCF’s most decorated wide receivers.

Slack’s 1987 senior year was his best, as he finished 219/420 for 3,054 yards (the first UCF passer to throw for 3,000+ in a seasons) and a then-school-best 26 TDs, a number that would last until Daunte Culpepper’s senior year. In one five-win stretch that year, Slack - along with his favorite targets, UCF Hall-of-Famer Bernard Ford and a young and talented freshman wideout named Sean Beckton - helped the Knights to a then-mind-bending 48.4 points per game, including this 45-point, 5 TD pass outburst against Northwest Missouri State:

Slack finished his college career owning all of UCF’s passing records, and his name still dots the UCF record books:

• 459/974 for 6,302 career passing yards (6th)
• 47 career TD passes (6th)
• 13.7 career yards per completion (2nd)
• Career-best 417 yards and still-school-record 7 TD passes in one game against West Georgia in 1987

As productive as he was as a UCF player, Slack’s post-UCF career has been something to behold.

A long-time high school coach and administrator who helped launch two high school programs in central Florida - at The Master’s Academy and Orangewood Christian - Darin is now one of the premiere quarterback gurus in the nation. He is the founder and president of National Football Academies, and has helped numerous high schoolers become college-level passers, and in the case of Trevor Siemian, an NFL starter. He’s also authored two books - one on quarterback play and another on ministry.

Slack still lives in Casselberry, but still travels the nation - and even overseas - year-round preaching the gospel of good quarterbacking.

Frankly, I have no idea how he’s not in the UCF Athletics Hall of Fame already. This speech alone should get him in: