Gene McDowell, who won more games than any other UCF head football coach as the longest-tenured individual in that role and also served as the Knights’ athletic director, died Tuesday morning in Quincy, Florida. He was 80.<\/p>\n
McDowell produced an 86-61 mark (.585) with the Knights from 1985 through 1997.<\/p>\n
When he took over at UCF the Knights were playing as an NCAA Division II program. Five years later in 1990 UCF began competing as a Division I-AA independent and in 1996 moved into Division I.<\/p>\n
McDowell led UCF to the NCAA Division II playoffs in 1987 and the Division I-AA playoffs in both 1990 (the first program to make the playoffs in its first season of eligibility) and 1993. Under his direction, the Knights finished 10-4 in 1990, 9-4 in 1987 and 9-3 in 1993.<\/p>\n
He also served as athletic director at UCF from 1985 through 1992. Under his watch UCF won a Division II playoff game in 1987 with a 12-10 victory over Indiana (Pennsylvania) and led the Knights to an FCS playoff win in 1990 in a 52-38 win against William & Mary.<\/p>\n
McDowell won the Eddie Robinson Award in 1990 as the top head coach in the NCAA Division I\u00a0Football Championship Subdivision\u00a0(formerly Division I-AA).<\/p>\n
A linebacker and offensive guard for the Seminoles from 1960-62, McDowell earned third-team All-America honors from the Associated Press as a senior. That same year he served as the Seminoles’ captain and was named MVP.<\/p>\n
He was an assistant coach at Kansas State from 1970-73 and then coached Florida State defensive ends in 1974-75 and Seminole linebackers from 1976-84 under head coach Bobby Bowden.<\/p>\n
A native of Waycross, Georgia, he recruited former all-star quarterback Daunte Culpepper to UCF. Culpepper set 15 school records as a junior in 1997 in McDowell’s final season as UCF head coach.<\/p>\n
Under McDowell’s watch the Knights had their first player selected in the NFL Draft\u2014wide receiver Ted Wilson in 1987.<\/p>\n
McDowell led UCF to a No. 2 national ranking in the Division II poll thanks to five straight wins to start the 1988 campaign.<\/p>\n
In 2015 McDowell was honored with an endowed scholarship in his name\u2014with the UCF McDowell Endowment Fund given annually to an incoming football player.<\/p>\n
Arrangements are pending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
McDowell led the Knights from 1985 through 1997 and during the first seven years of his tenure also served as athletics director. He died at the age of 80.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":117357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5,26],"tags":[1610,6119,15761,4857],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-117356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","category-sports","tag-eternal-knights","tag-gene-mcdowell","tag-pegasus-briefs","tag-ucf-athletics"],"yoast_head":"\n