UCF Knights fall to badly ranked FIU

Matthew Wright hadn't kicked a field goal in NCAA history until the moment he was called up with less than 30 seconds left and UCF's football team 1 point behind FIU Thursday night. It did not end well for the Knights.

Three downs of stuffed runs up the middle after the Knights started their final series of what would later be called questionable plays, the Knights left their first game of the 2015 campaign in the hands of a rookie kicker 47 yards from the uprights.

The game up to that moment had been the inverse of the Knights' opener the year before, when QB Justin Holman had taken over after a disastrous start that left the Knights well behind, and let them rapidly to a near-win. No win would come, despite a 21-point comeback by then-backup quarterback Justin Holman, falling 26-24 in Dublin's Croke Park, immediately dubbed "croak park" by Knights fans.

In this game Thusday, the Knights would dominate early, then fall apart late, handing the win to FIU courtesy of all 12 points of the second half.

And as the Knights' characteristically strong defense wrestled the ball back from the Panthers, UCF had one final chance. Well within field goal range, it was squandered by three straight inside gives compounded negatively by a five-yard penalty.

As Wright's kick left his foot, the FIU special teams unit had already built a ladder in the middle of the hash marks, deflecting the ball and turning a winning play into a celebration for the Panthers.

"We are on the 25-yard line," Head Coach George O'Leary said after the game. "You just maintain your distance and that kid makes field goals blindfolded from there."

The Knights, AAC champions both years of the conference's history, are 0-1, felled by a team ranked 105 of 128 in SBNation.com's ranking of FBS schools.

The Knights play Sanford at 10:30 p.m. ET on Sept. 12, at the edge of the San Francisco Bay.