Knights ready to grab USF Bulls by the horns

The Knights drenched SMU on the football field Saturday with a rain-soaked deluge of points to send a prolific senior group out in dramatic fashion. And with the 53-7 blowout, the Knights did something they hadn’t done in 13 seasons: go undefeated at home.

According to UCF head coach George O’Leary by the final quarter the Knights — landslide win seemingly in hand — were throttling back on offense and looking ahead.

“I thought it was a good game all around,” he said after the game. “We tried to eat the clock up and run the ball down the stretch. I’ve been at both ends of that score; I think that everybody wants to see offense, but I’ll never [run up the score against] any other team.”

Now they face a coming challenge in the proverbial thorn in their side: USF. It’s an annual showdown with a history transcending a grudge match, with UCF’s shot at a conference title hanging in the balance.

After losing to UConn 37-29 in a night-after-Halloween nightmare, the Knights needed to win every game to have a shot at taking the American Athletic Conference title from a seemingly unstoppable Memphis. So far, the Knights have taken two straight must-win games.

After that season low point against the Huskies, the Knights punctuated a high one with their demolition of SMU, in a win that was never in doubt after the first successful drive.

It took the Knights less than 5 minutes to enter the end zone for the first time. The Knights would just expand their lead from there, jumping out to a 27-0 lead before the end of the first quarter.

From there, the Knights would cruise, scoring on 10 of 15 drives in the game. They failed to avoid two Justin Holman interceptions though, as the Knights’ sophomore quarterback went 15-for-22 for 228 yards and two touchdowns. He added to the highlight reel with a 58-yard touchdown pass to J.J. Worton who raced down the sidelines in a drizzle, leaving SMU’s entire defense behind.

That Worton TD catch would have been the longest play of the game were it not for a 96-yard kickoff return by Michael Easton — the first time that’s happened to a Knight since 2012. That came less than a minute after Easton stopped a SMU touchdown by hauling down Deion Sanders Jr. who was 64 yards into an attempted kick-return TD of his own.

“We’ve been looking for a kickoff return [for touchdown] all season,” O’Leary said, “and he put it in the end zone.”

Former Dr. Phillips phenom and current UCF freshman QB Nick Patti finally had an outing that didn’t include an interception, going two-for-four on passes for 26 yards plus a rushing touchdown in relief for Holman.

And the Knights’ two young running backs filled in again for an injured Will Stanback, with Micah Reed taking the ball 26 times for 112 yards and Dontravious Wilson averaging 5.3 yards per carry en route to 80 yards of his own.

That would all add up to a 490-116 differential in yards gained by the teams, with the UCF defense holding SMU to the fewest yards allowed by the Knights since 2009. The Knights defense would tie the all-time record for first downs allowed in a game, with just four successful first downs by SMU.

The win kept the Knights (7-3, 5-1) in the running for the American Athletic Conference championship. The Knights trail Memphis (8-3, 6-1) and have an identical record to Cincinnati. Neither of those teams are on UCF’s schedule this season.

The Tigers edged USF 31-20 on Nov. 22 to keep themselves on top in the conference. They face only UConn, with a 2-8 overall and 1-5 conference record, currently second-worst in the AAC, in their final game.

The Knights have two games to go, with USF immediately on their horizon. The Bulls have been a perennial struggle for the Knights, who are 1-4 against them all time.

But the Knights played the Bulls in two very different eras to amass that record. When the Knights were losing every game to the Bulls during the “War on I-4” era, they started at the tail end of what was then the worst losing streak in NCAA Division 1 football, extending to 17 games across three seasons.

The Knights first loss to the Bulls was also the last loss of the infamous streak. But it was the start of another one for the Knights, in which they would lose four straight games to USF in successive seasons. At the teams’ broadest disparity, UCF was a 3-2 team in Conference USA, and USF was a 5-0 Big East team ranked No. 5 in the nation in 2007. USF would win that game 64-12, one of the biggest blowout losses in UCF’s Division 1/FBS history.

The Bulls would then cancel their rivalry with the Knights, declaring that they were seeking tougher competition after their final game in 2008. That game would be the closest the Knights had ever come to defeating their cross-state rivals, coming back to tie the Bulls in the fourth quarter, only to lose in overtime.

The ensuing five seasons without a UCF-USF game saw the Knights rise to prominence as the Bulls fell into obscurity, USF joining the AAC in 2013 after the Big East disbanded, and immediately earning the worst overall record in the conference.

When the Knights faced USF on Nov. 29, 2013, in what would become a season notorious for last-minute heart-stopping wins for the Knights, they needed an interception with USF driving toward what looked like a would-be go-ahead touchdown to win the game. They got it in a Jordan Ozerities snag that would be returned 52 yards to effectively end the game, clinching UCF’s first win over USF on that cold night in the Bright House.

The Knights would survive five turnovers to beat USF in that game. The Bulls (4-7, 3-4) return a squad this year against UCF that has proven itself a machine at producing turnovers, with 17 on the year. Linebacker Nigel Harris has led the Bulls, ranked No. 1 in forcing fumbles with five to his credit.

The Bulls’ only wins this season have come against the three worst teams in the conference, all of them slotting neatly just beneath the Bulls in the conference standings.

There is no bowl game awaiting the Bulls. Their loss to Memphis last week ensured it. The most wins the Bulls can have this season, if they beat the Knights, is five; one game shy of the wins needed to be bowl eligible. Their season ends with this game.

For UCF, a bowl bid is assured, and a conference championship still hangs in the balance. The game starts at noon on Friday at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. It’ll be broadcast on ESPN2.