Gus Malzahn, UCF Knights football embrace sandhill crane as recruiting 'Bat-Signal'. Here's the story. (2024)

ORLANDO — Few creatures in the animal kingdom deliver a louder message than the sandhill crane. Its rattling bugle calls, often strung together and lasting several seconds at a time, can be heard 2½ miles away.

So perhaps it's fitting, while simultaneously altogether bizarre, that videos and pictures of these birds — native to Central Florida — have sounded the football recruiting alarm at UCF for the last six months on X.

UCF's content team strategically spaces out its sandhill crane material as a preliminary strike, hinting at an eventual, trademark "BOOM" tweet from head coach Gus Malzahn — the confirmation of a Knights commit, either from the high school ranks or the NCAA's transfer portal.

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Think of it as social media's version of Pavlovian conditioning. As Malzahn told 247Sports' Josh Pate in April, "If you see one of those, there's fixing to be good news." If a crane pops up on UCF Football's Twitter feed, fans can expect a player to pick the Knights later that day.

It's a trend that has caught on with UCF's tech-savvy fanbase. Each crane post generates tens of thousands of views, and hundreds of likes. And while it sounds like a calculated, strategic plan, those in the know are the first to admit that the response has been both stunning and overwhelming.

"It's been fun. I love reading the quote tweets, too. Recruiting is one of those wacky things to where everybody has their Bat-Signal, but how can you make things your own? We think about that all the time here," said Eric DeSalvo, UCF's associate athletic director for #content.

"I've been a huge believer that no-context content gets so much more engagement when it's the right time to post it. You're leaving it up to the follower to add their own context to it or their own take to it."

The origin story

DeSalvo was on the receiving end of no-context content on the afternoon of Dec. 13, 2022 — from Malzahn.

Malzahn sent a video of two cranes squawking near his truck and told DeSalvo, the program's "social media guru," that he would like to post it onto his verified account. While Florida sandhill cranes are fairly commonplace around UCF's campus, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimates that only about 4,000 to 5,000 of the non-migratory, year-round breeding subspecies live in the wild.

The sandhill crane has been listed as a state-designated threatened species since 1974 due in large part to degradation or direct loss of habitat from wetland drainage or conversion of prairie for development or agricultural use, per the FWC.

Malzahn, who grew up in Arkansas, was both largely unfamiliar with sandhill cranes and amused at their presence and proximity to his office.

Two days later, Malzahn's video posted with the caption, "Just on the way to my truck today."

Simultaneously, rumors ran rampant across UCF's message boards regarding a pair of major potential recruiting flips — Lakewood four-star defensive end Isaiah Nixon and Edgewater five-star running back Cedric Baxter Jr. Nixon eventually did rejoin the Knights' 2023 signing class, while Baxter honored his summertime commitment to Texas and helped the Longhorns win the Big 12 title this past season.

So as Malzahn posted a seemingly innocuous appreciation of local wildlife, and some followers critiqued his truck's crooked alignment within the allotted parking space, some UCF fans tried their hand at searching for clues and reading supposed tea leaves.

Malzahn and DeSalvo scrolled through the responses and shared a handful of laughs at the amateur detective work.

That could well have been that. But this past winter, DeSalvo and assistant #content director Julian Bright revisited the idea as they continued to see the birds out and about.

"I think one day it was just that we had such a good video of a bird that we wanted an excuse to send it out," Bright said. "It was such an easy conversation (with DeSalvo) that I don’t know the true origin. … The fact that it does so well every time, we just roll with it."

Gus Malzahn steps out of 'comfort zone' on social media

Upon gaining immediate approval from Malzahn, Bright and DeSalvo set out to stockpile a library of crane content.

One early January morning confirmed Bright's belief in an unexplainable link between the birds and the Knights' recruiting plan. A group of cranes walked around UCF's practice fields that day, roughly 10 minutes before a helicopter arrived to take Malzahn and a group of assistants across the state to visit players at their respective high schools.

"It was a true, weird moment where it really did mean cool things were coming," Bright said.

Since Malzahn arrived at UCF in February 2021, DeSalvo has continually pushed the envelope as far as generating content featuring the 58-year-old coach. On the whole, he said, Malzahn has offered little pushback.

"What you can appreciate about Gus is that he understands that if (his) players like it and (his) recruits like it, then I like it," DeSalvo said. "It shows he's got a great understanding of how this whole thing works.

“He's come in with very much an open mind to say, 'yes' to things."

In previous spring games, UCF's players have worn jerseys with their Twitter handles as nameplates and QR codes directly linking to their profiles on the university's athletics website. As name, image and likeness became the norm within college football, Malzahn began wearing his players' merchandise at press conferences.

He's appeared in a number of the athletic department's video skits, donning a spacesuit in October 2022 and deadpanning at the conclusion of its "Office"-inspired 2024 schedule release. Malzahn credits DeSalvo, his wife Kristi, The Kingdom NIL executive director SJ Tuohy and executive director of recruiting Alex Mathis for getting him "out of my comfort zone."

"I think how you can tell that I've changed is looking at my Twitter from the last five years. We don’t use all the ideas. I can tell you that," Malzahn said.

'Boom! Bird' branding leads to merchandise for The Kingdom NIL

Not only did the sandhill crane commitment video idea stick, it has branched out into a merchandising opportunity for UCF's NIL collective.

"Never in the scheme of college football has recruiting been more relative in social media," Tuohy said. "It's weird that people care about it, but people do.

"When you know, you know. This is not a flash in the pan.”

The Kingdom NIL put its 'Boom! Bird' merchandise collection online for sale May 2, including short-sleeved and long-sleeved T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies. Prices range from $23.99 to $34.99.

Bright hopes the sandhill crane brand expands, seeing fan-designed mockups for uniforms and helmets. DeSalvo joked that the beloved Citronaut, a mascot with the head of an astronaut and the body of an orange, "might be in trouble."

DeSalvo added: "Does it work to say the sky's the limit for a bird mascot?"

To date, The Kingdom has sold 102 shirts with an expectation of more as commitments continue to pile up throughout the summer. More than 80% of proceeds go to the collective, which raises less than 1% of its funds through merchandise sales. Donations and memberships account for the vast majority of revenue.

"The 'Boom!' shirts are no good without the 'Boom!' tweets," Tuohy said.

During the spring transfer portal window, Chris Hummer (247Sports) and Pete Nakos (On3 Sports) listed the Knights among their "winners." Miami quarterback Jacurri Brown and running back Peny Boone, the 2023 MAC Offensive Player of the Year at Toledo, were among the Knights' key addition.

Attention shifts squarely on closing strong for the 2025 high school class following a month's worth of official visits. More than a half-dozen of the Knights' priority targets are set to announce their college choices in the next three weeks, including two on Saturday afternoon alone: St. Augustine wide receiver Carl Jenkins Jr. and Vero Beach cornerback RJ Jones III.

The Knights flipped Tampa Bay Tech's Rukeem Stroud from Wisconsin on Monday, and sit 49th overall in 247Sports' composite team recruiting rankings.

Malzahn expects the rest of the summer to be filled with booms — and birds.

"That's the plan," he said.

"It makes more sense now than it did (at the start). We just fell into it, and now our fanbase knows. It's like a Bat-Signal."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: UCF football: Sandhill cranes sound alarm online for Knights commits