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UCF fell to 1-1 on the season Sunday, waiting until the final minutes of the game to score their first points of a rain-soaked afternoon against Pittsburgh. The Knights were penalized nine times and saw several other chances to turn the tide of the game slip through their fingers throughout the day. Here's what Scott Frost had to say from the podium in the aftermath. MORE: UCF Football Falls To Pitt 12-7 in Rainy Road Contest On his team's offensive improvement not happening until the final minutes of the game: "We just made a few plays, honestly, down the stretch, you know. I think there's a lot that we have to look at and reconsider. We got to play better on offense. That starts with me and the offensive staff. You know, I just didn't think we clicked. We looked clumsy getting lined up, motioning. So yeah, we got to take a hard look if we had too much in the game plan, if the weather had a lot to do with it, you know, it just didn't look clean. And against a defense like that, if you're not clean, you're not going to hit. And, you know we got to establish more of a run game than that. In general, I'm so happy with how the defense played and if they give us that kind of effort on the road, you know. I think they gave up 10 points. We got to find a way to win." On Alonzo Barnett's injury status after leaving late in the game: "Yeah, we're not sure what it was yet, hopefully it's just a cramp, but I don't know yet." On what contributed to UCF's issues in the running game: "Well, that's their defense, right? First of all, they crowd the box. They got the safeties tight. The linebackers trigger. You got to really earn it in the run game against them, To loosen them up, you got to be able to throw it and hit shots and we didn't. We didn't have the ball long enough to throw it and hold shots, and we didn't hit them when we had our chance in the first half. And that just kind of snowballed like, you know, the first quarter, I thought the rain affected us and we had field position advantage in the first quarter. And then in the second quarter, it wasn't raining and we were backed up, two drives in a row. In general, we gotta run the ball better even if it's tough to run the ball, and we get our chances. We got to hit on a few more things. It was just too sloppy." On Alonza Barnett's rushing success in the second half: "You know, those weren't designed runs for him. Those were passes, and he scrambled, and that's how [Pitt] play [too]. They call a lot of pass plays and the protection doesn't always hold up and I think that quarterback's a really good player and he scrambles around and either takes off with it, or, throws something late, and that's where a lot of the big plays came from last week, and came from this week. I think our kid is capable of doing some of the same things and, that's kind of the running yards he got late in the game were scrambling." On the value of the defense's performance, in particular linebacker Lewis Carter: "Yeah, Lou's a good player, and our defense played really hard. And you know, a year ago, I don't know if we'd have kept fighting through a game like that, and credit to our kids' character. They kept fighting and swinging and put ourselves in a position to have a chance at the end." On miscommunications between the receivers and the quarterbacks: "We got to take a hard look at it and see why it didn't look like I want it to look, and that starts with me. You know, we had a receiver that missed a day for an appointment and another, you know, missing Speedy certainly doesn't help. Yeah, that sounds like excuses, so I don't want to talk about it. You know, maybe we had a few too many concepts in because the stuff we ran, it just wasn't clean and you got to be clean against them. They know what they're doing on defense. They're really good. And our plan going in was to try to establish  run and then take some shots, and we couldn't get that going, and it turned out our best way to play was to spread out and Give Alonza a chance to either throw it, or scramble. And, you know, part of that's honestly me learning the team a little bit, but it certainly wasn't good enough on offense and, that starts with me." On the play where Barnett's intentional grounding call in the end zone resulted in a safety against UCF: "That was my fault. We got the wrong play communicated to Alonza. It wasn't his fault. We got the wrong play. That wasn't what I intended to get called. I'm embarrassed to say why, but I had a call sheet on the field with an ink pen and we have a few numbers on a wristband, calls that are a little longer calls, and the ink bled into the wristband number and I called the wrong play. So that's 100% on me and that's certainly not a play call I would have made on the six-yard line. So I've never had that happen. I didn't want to move to my laminated sheet because I had a lot of notes on the other one and it wasn't raining that hard yet, but I've never had that happen. I'll make sure I get that fixed." On the those two points meaning the difference between being down three and five points on their final drive: "Yeah, three makes a big difference. You know, mistakes just hurt us and it was offensive mistakes. You know, I was disappointed. We had 10 guys on the field on special teams twice and we got to understand when we're behind in the game that we can't take so long to punt the football. And, you know, it's some situational stuff that as a head coach, I got to do a better job with. And even you know, we did the right thing at the two-minute warning to try to steal a play before the two-minute warning, get another play snapped before the two-minute warning, and it was second and seven or eight, and we took a 15-yard penalty. Otherwise the next play we ran would have got a first down. Those are discipline things and detail things that start with me and the coaching staff, and it wasn't good enough, particularly on offense." On taking a shot down field on fourth down with short yardage to go in the third quarter: "Yeah, we got a play called there. We called a lot of shots today. We didn't get some off and we didn't run some very well. That particular play, there was a timeout right before it and they didn't give us a look they've given us before. They gave us [a] seven up, all-out blitz look and that's one of the answers on that is to take the one-on-one and throw it deep. And, I thought Bibbs did a good job and beat him. The ball was just out of bounds. But we wanted to call a bunch of those. It's hard to call them when you're three-and-out, and, you know, we spent a lot of the game just trying to get the first first down so we can get it moving, and we left a lot of good things on the call sheet and credit to them a lot because of how they played on defense." On missed opportunities for big plays in the first half, particularly Dylan Wade's dropped deep shot and Jayden Bellamy's dropped interception: "Yeah, those are the plays that when you're in a close game are going to matter. And, Yyah, I wish we had those two plays back because it's, as poor as we were on offense, if we hit D-Wade, that probably leads to points and when you have a chance to pick it, if we can pick it, you know, as bad as we played, we might have been ahead in the second quarter. But in general, it was a really good effort by them, a really good effort by our defense, and we got a lot to figure out offensively." On how his team handled adversity and how they can move forward: "I thought they handled adversity well in this game, you know, we probably played our best football in the second half. Wasn't enough, but we started to get things, some things clicking on offense a little bit. And defense, I think, gave up 70 some yards in the second half. The elements were tough on them too. They're a throwing team and they do a great job with it and it was tough to operate down there. But in general, you know, we had to play in the same elements as them, and we needed to play a little better and make a few more plays." On Jayden Bellamy's injury status: "I haven't got an injury update on anybody yet, so, I'll be able to answer some of those questions more." On where the team goes from here: "It's not back to the drawing board. It's making the adjustments we need to make to make sure that we continue to play that well on defense and find a way to get things rolling on offense a little bit. Again, credit to them. They know what they're doing on defense. They heated us up. We didn't have enough answers, and when we did, we didn't hit them. You know, you look at some of the blitzes, and we had guys really wide open down the field, but that's kind of their plan is to blitz you and not give you time to find those guys. And, we got to run the ball better. That starts up front with the coaching staff and, we got to have a better plan if they're going to heat us up that much." For more UCF coverage, follow Knights247 on X, Instagram, and Facebook! Sign up for our FREE UCF Knights Newsletter