Brandon Marshall, George O’Leary and Kevin Smith have been selected to the UCF Athletics Hall of Fame, the school announced Friday. The trio will join the remainder of the 6-member 2019 class for an induction ceremony on April 12 and a public recognition at the Knights’ spring game on April 13.
Marshall played wide receiver for the Knights from 2002-05. He did not become a full-time wide receiver until his senior campaign of ’05, where he snagged 74 passes for 1,195 yards and 11 touchdowns. That season was good enough to garner him a Second Team All-Conference USA selection and, more importantly, a fourth-round selection by the Denver Broncos, where his NFL exploits have outshined his accomplishments in Orlando. Closing in on 1,000 career catches, Marshall was a First Team All-Pro wideout in 2012, a Second Team All-Pro selection in 2015 and has appeared in a half-dozen Pro Bowls across his 13-year career.
Smith’s career trajectory was the opposite of Marshall’s. UCF’s starting running back from the day he stepped on campus in 2005, he toted 905 carries for 4,679 yards and 45 touchdowns during his three seasons in Orlando. As a junior in 2007, he rushed 450 times for a national-best 2,567 yards and a then-Conference USA record 29 touchdowns, making him the first Knight to ever become a consensus First Team All-American and the second to receive Heisman Trophy votes. He declared for the NFL draft after his junior campaign, where he became a third-round pick of the Detroit Lions and rushed for 2,346 yards in five seasons with the club.
Smith moved into coaching in 2015 and is now the running backs coach at Florida Atlantic, where in 2017 he helped Devin Singletary break his own C-USA record with 32 rushing touchdowns.
O’Leary was UCF’s head coach from 2004-15, where he shepherded the program (and, ultimately, the university) from the MAC, to Conference USA, to the American. His 12-year tenure saw the Knights go 81-68, book four 10-win seasons and win or share four conference championships, along with the building of an on-campus football stadium and a brand new football facility. O’Leary’s tenure was oddly bookended by winless seasons; UCF was 0-11 in the MAC, then went 0-12 in 2015 (the Knights were 0-8 when O’Leary resigned), a season that led to the Scott Frost hiring and the program’s FBS-best 25-game winning streak in 2017-18.
