Eagles clinch, Knights lose iconic coach

Edgewater

The Eagles no longer need to win another game to make it into the playoffs, after clinching a postseason berth with a dominating 49-21 win over East Ridge on Oct. 22.

Now all they can lose is the district championship. At 5-0 in district play, they hold it outright, a game ahead of the team that could force a district tiebreaker. And they play that team Friday night.

Hagerty (6-2, 4-1) has nipped at the heels of Edgewater all season, after starting as the first team to lose a district game. They’ve since beaten the next four teams they faced to keep them in the playoff running. Win or lose, Hagerty will be in a tiebreaker game come Monday night, with the postseason on the line.

The game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Edgewater.

Winter Park

A 31-17 loss to Boone on Oct. 22 cratered Winter Park’s hopes of a postseason berth. Wildcats quarterback Nick Sproles threw for 138 yards with two interceptions and two rushing touchdowns in the game. Senior running back Malik Foy rushed for 56 yards and Tre’on Taylor caught 46 yards of passes.

The Wildcats travel for their final two games, going to Port Orange to face Spruce Creek, with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff Friday.

UCF

With just over four minutes left in the first half of their game against Houston, UCF was up 10-7 and had outgained one of the top offenses in the nation by 231 yards to 49. Then, just as had happened in more than half their games this year, the Knights took a lead and threw it away.

By the time the Knights left the field at halftime, they were down 24-10 and the floodgates had only just opened. Two quarters later, they were on the losing end of the largest blowout they’ve suffered all season, falling 59-10. Within 24 hours of their eighth loss in 2015, they had also lost their head coach of 12 seasons.

George O’Leary’s career as one of the winningest coaches in UCF football history will now be bookended by two of the team’s three longest losing streaks of all time, and by blowout losses in his first and last games at the helm.

The most recent loss may have hurt the worst, as the Knights, winless this season and with the statistically worst-ranked offense in the top-tier NCAA FBS, took a lead deep into the first half against an undefeated No. 21 team with the fifth-best offense in the nation.

That wild run through most of the first two quarters came despite a disastrous opening drive, which spanned 60 yards before UCF receiver Cam Stewart took his only reception of the game and let it be stripped at the Houston 16-yard-line. In that instant, a would-be scoring drive for UCF ended just 74 seconds into the game and turned into an 84-yard Houston fumble return touchdown. Houston wouldn’t score again for the next 26 minutes of game time while the Knights, improbably, took control.

Knights quarterback Justin Holman, back in his second game after recovering from a broken finger on his throwing hand, moved the offense with efficiency in 60, 94, and 40-yard drives in the first half. But during those drives four passes came within inches of being intercepted, with two of Holman’s pass attempts hitting Houston defenders in the shoulder pads and in the back of a helmet. One of them was picked off outright by a Houston defender who had no Knights receivers within 10 yards of him at the time. That interception was called back on a roughing the passer penalty, sparing the Knights an early turnover on one of their better drives.

After that, the early harbingers became real game-changing mistakes for Holman, who would throw interceptions in back-to-back drives to end the first half. All three of Holman’s interceptions in the game would become scoring drives for Houston. The Knights now have thrown the second most interceptions in the FBS, and have the worst turnover margin in the FBS.

In all Houston would turn all four of UCF’s turnovers into 24 points worth of scores, ripping open an unsealable scoring gap. Once UCF’s turnovers started happening, UCF stopped scoring, and Houston ran away with the game, scoring 52 unanswered points.

After gaining 247 yards in the first half, UCF gained just 58 in the second. Houston, which gained just 49 yards before going on its massive scoring run to overtake and then bury the Knights, finished the game with 600 total yards on offense.

The next day, O’Leary announced he was stepping down, effective immediately, divulging at the same time a plan that had allegedly been in place for nearly two years that would have seen him leave at the end of 2015, regardless of record. He had allegedly tried to retire after the Knights’ Fiesta Bowl upset win two seasons ago, widely regarded as the most important win in the most successful season in team history, but was talked into staying two more years by UCF.

“The administration has always been aware of my plan to retire after this season,” O’Leary said in a released statement, then explaining his rationale behind the move. “In an effort to allow UCF to accelerate its search for my successor and clarify the facts regarding my future plans, I am retiring effective immediately.”

Even before his announcement, O’Leary’s replacement was rumored for much of the season to be Brent Key, coordinator of the worst offense in the FBS. That replacement will instead be the coach of UCF’s interception-prone quarterbacking corps, Danny Barrett, on an interim basis. Barrett was head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League from 2000-2006, leading the team to a 57-68-1 record in that time.

“[It’s] not an ideal situation to be in,” Barrett said of his team’s position, during a press conference following O’Leary’s retirement announcement. “I look forward to now hopefully getting our guys into the win column as quickly as possible.”

Key, who presides over an offense that has gained 106 fewer yards per game than they did before he became offensive coordinator — leading to fans wielding signs calling for his firing during games — reportedly will be paid $700,000 by UCF for not being named O’Leary’s successor.

Barrett’s first game leading the Knights will come after a long flight to Cincinnati (4-3, 1-2), where the game kicks off at noon on Halloween. Whether the Knights’ 0-8 record continues to haunt them depends on a rapid turnaround on both sides of the ball. They face the FBS’s seventh-best offense, fresh off destroying the UConn Huskies 37-13 Saturday. The game will be televised on ESPNews.