{"id":198494,"date":"2026-03-19T23:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T23:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/198494\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T23:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T23:49:08","slug":"ucf-exploring-contract-extension-for-johnny-dawkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/198494\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF exploring contract extension for Johnny Dawkins"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA \u2014On the eve of UCF<\/a> basketball\u2019s first NCAA Tournament appearance in seven years, discussions surrounding a possible contract extension for coach Johnny Dawkins<\/a> have already begun.<\/p>\n

Dawkins, who is wrapping up his 10th season with the Knights, signed a two-year contract extension in 2024 that runs through the 2026-27 season. However, the final year of the deal is non-guaranteed.<\/p>\n

UCF athletics director Terry Mohajir<\/a> said the university is considering several scenarios regarding any future deal with Dawkins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll talk to his representatives,\u201d Mohajir told the Sentinel. \u201cThere are several different scenarios that we\u2019re looking at \u2014 short-term extension or long, we\u2019re going to look at some different options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mohajir indicated that a governance process is involved in extending a contract, with UCF President Alexander Cartwright and the school\u2019s Board of Trustees working with the athletics department on a new deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking to his representatives and I\u2019ve got to work through the university,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mohajir said he sat down with Dawkins last season to discuss expectations surrounding the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had high expectations,\u201d said Mohajir, who was in Philadelphia for UCF\u2019s first-round game against UCLA on Friday. \u201cNo one has higher expectations for the basketball program than Johnny. Obviously, he lives it every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knights won a program-best nine Big 12 games this season, finishing eighth in the conference standings. The team also secured five Quad 1 victories, including wins over Texas A&M, Kansas, Texas Tech, BYU and Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

The win over the Bearcats came in overtime in the second-round of the Big 12 Tournament.<\/p>\n

Mohajir said he tries to avoid entering the last year of a coach\u2019s contract unless there are expectations for that year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of been our thing, if you look at our history of all of our sports, it\u2019s pretty common,\u201d Mohajir explained.<\/p>\n

He went on to add that, because college sports are transactional, athletes are less likely to ask about coaches\u2019 long-term contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one asks how long coaches\u2019 contracts are like they did 10 years ago,\u201d Mohajir said. \u201cThey\u2019re not asking about that because kids may not be there for five years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram @osmattmurschel. Email: mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. Sign up for the Sentinel\u2019s Knights Weekly newsletter for a roundup of all our UCF coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014On the eve of UCF basketball\u2019s first NCAA Tournament appearance in seven years, discussions surrounding a possible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111,28,114,1335,139,141,140,76046,110,3865],"class_list":["post-198494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-ucf-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}