ORLANDO, Fla. — UCF named a new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach on Wednesday, and he will be a familiar face to longtime Knights fans.

Darin Hinshaw, who started at quarterback for UCF from 1991-94 and finished his career as UCF’s leader in every major passing category, will take over play-calling duties for the Knights in 2023, coach Gus Malzahn announced.

Hinshaw said coming back to coach at his alma mater is his dream job.

“I always wanted to be back here,” Hinshaw said. “And I always wanted to call the plays here and be in charge of the offense.”

He started his coaching career at UCF, working as a graduate assistant for coach Mike Kruczek in 1999 and as quarterbacks coach in 2000 after a brief stint as a player for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and the Arena Football League’s Orlando Predators. He left to get experience in a variety of roles and to learn as he worked with coaches at various programs throughout the country. His most recent coaching role was as offensive coordinator at UAB last season, when the Blazers set team records for total yards (5,697), rushing yards (3,063), yards per game (438.2) and rushing yards per game (235.6).

After 23 years, he is finally back in Orlando.

“I’m excited to be here, to be at UCF, to be here, where I sweat. I bleed black and gold,” Hinshaw said. “And the people that know me in this coaching industry know that. They know my passion. This is my dream job.”

Hinshaw understands that working for Malzahn at UCF as offensive coordinator is a big responsibility.

“He’s been an icon in (college football) offense for 25 years,” Hinshaw said. “And for him to give me the play-calling duties is a great honor, and I want to make him proud.”

Hinshaw promised UCF’s offense will be “fast,” “multiple tempo” and will feature “a hard-nosed, physical run game.”

“And we are going to throw the football down the field,” said Hinshaw, who passed for 9,000 yards and 82 touchdowns as the Knights’ quarterback. UCF had a 28-16 record while he was in that role, and he led the team to a berth in the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs.

He said he will be an aggressive play-caller but understands the importance of situational football.

“I like to throw the football, but I’ve learned in this process to run the football, and it’s a must,” Hinshaw said. “And you’ve got to be great at it. And you’ve got to be demanding.”

His experience comes as an offensive coordinator in four different college football conferences, some of which have finished among the nation’s top 10 in passing, rushing and total offense. He has held a variety of coaching positions at Kentucky, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Memphis, UAB and Georgia Southern. His duties included coaching quarterbacks and wide receivers, recruiting, play-calling and devising offenses, depending upon the team for which he worked. He even worked as an analyst with the Knights in 2021 on Malzahn’s staff, helping UCF win six of its final seven games — including the Gasparilla Bowl win over Florida.

Hinshaw said he already has met with UCF’s quarterbacks and is excited about the players the Knights have and the team’s move to the Big 12.

The decision by Malzahn to bring in an offensive coordinator to call the plays was a surprise. He had said when he took the job as UCF’s head coach that he was excited to call the plays again and that he expected to do so until he decided to retire.

But Malzahn said Wednesday that he realized about halfway through the 2022 season that college football has changed dramatically in the past two years and he would need an offensive coordinator to call the plays. But he said he wanted to finish the season as he had operated since he took the job to maintain continuity throughout the season.

“In this day and time, I don’t know how head coaches can be play-callers,” Malzahn said. “There’s probably a few of them who can still pull it off, but there’s more challenges than ever before.

“I’m really excited about the next step in my head-coaching career, spending time with our players, overseeing our program. We have our hands full with the NIL (name, image and likeness) world right now, the one-time (transfer) portal and the roster management. Everything’s been accelerated….That’s how we got to this point.”

He said he always had hired coaches who worked with him in the past but said this time, he kept an open mind and the best choice turned out to be Hinshaw.

Malzahn said Hinshaw’s ability to develop quarterbacks was one of the main characteristics he admired in his new offensive coordinator and that Hinshaw will be in charge of evaluating the Knights’ existing quarterbacks — 2022 starter John Rhys Plumlee, rising sophomore Thomas Castellanos, USF transfer Timmy McClain and 2022 early signee Dylan Rizk — and making decisions on the future at that position.

“We gotta open this thing up,” Malzahn said. “…When he (Hinshaw) talks about vertically down the field, that gets me excited.”