Season wrap up

I like most Knight faithful tend to look at the football world through black and gold color glasses. But I set those aside when I was trying to preview the upcoming 2013 football season. I thought I knew that our defense would have some challenges to overcome and that might be the reason we would come up a little short this year in trying to win the conference. Special teams as well would have to fill some missing pieces and try and play up to the high standards from the previous year. When evaluating the offense I honestly did not have any worries about them. At the end of the year I believe I was correct in my assumptions about all three units but at the same time I was also incorrect. The offense, defense, and special teams all played up to and beyond their potential in most games but there were some times that they would not play very well at all. The thing I remember most about the team this year was that they always played like a team, that is when one did not do that well the other on stepped up and did the things that were needed in each game to somehow find a way to win. I am so glad that they exceeded my expectations and I am definitely not alone.

Go Knights! Charge On!

Good Knight at the Fiesta Bowl

Actually it was a Great Knight but the title was just to honor the saying on the shirts the winning team put on after the game.  I can't even imagine how it can get any better than this.  I suppose if we had won a national championship then I guess it could be better than this.  No one gave us a chance at winning against the Big 12 champion Baylor Bears and their record setting scoring offense.  Well actually the only person to give us a shot at winning was Lou Holtz who said UCF under George O'Leary would come to the game ready to play and would actually win.  Thanks Lou for believing in the Black and Gold.

The start of the game would set the tone for the night as we took the football the length of the field on the first possession to take an early lead in the game.  On Baylor's first possession of the game I witnessed something that had been mostly absent most of the season for our defense and that was we actually got some pressure on the quarterback including a sack on third down to cause the great Baylor offense to go three downs and out.  We then proceeded to take the ball down the field once again and put it in the end zone.  After the extra point the Knights of UCF were winning 14 - 0 over the Baylor Bears.  Together both teams would make it an interesting game as we would have a short stretch in the game where we turned the ball over three times in consecutive plays.  Once again this season the team would face and then overcome adversity as the third of those turnovers would actually end up with Bryce Petty throwing an interception into the end zone so Baylor was unable to capitalize on that mistake.  We would then grab back the momentum in the game by turning that touchback into a touchdown and take a lead of 21-13.  After that we would trade touchdowns with the Bears going into halftime with the Knights up 28-20.

The second half would see Baylor tie up the score and make it 28-28 and perhaps a new ballgame.  Unfortunately for the Bears our offense would finally throw it in fourth gear, step on the gas pedal and then pull away by scoring on all of the four next drives while holding the great Baylor offense to only two more touchdowns.  After Shawn Moffitt kicked a 36 yard field goal with 4:44 minutes left in the game I started thinking in my head - "Oh my God, we are going to win this game".  Of course that last four minutes and 44 seconds were the longest I can remember and when J.J. Worton grabbed the ball on a failed attempt at an on-side kickoff by Baylor, the game was over and the UCF Knights would tell all of the so called experts to suck it.

We just out-scored the highest scoring offense in college football is all and we were 17 point underdogs?  The way the Baylor team played it appeared as though they believed that because they were 17 point favorites in the game then all they had to do is show up.  The Bears had 17 penalties called against them.  To me that shows they were not focused on the game and did  not expect much of a fight from that unknown school from Central Florida.  Here's what some "experts" predicted:





Well we came out and smacked them in the mouth in the opening quarter of the game and although they tied up the game eventually I think they were expecting us to just fold and not finish the game. To roughly quote Blake after the game "Nobody outside of Central Florida gave us a chance, we came here and showed everyone what UCF football is all about."  The latest and greatest victory in UCF Football history without a doubt.

Go Knights! Charge On!

Check out the stats recap of the game here



Here is another video from local (Phoenix) television?




Postgame celebration




Here is video from another local (Phoenix) station.

Fiesta Bowl Bound

Was not my first choice only because of the cost of traveling across the country would have been too much but I am very happy that we will get to play on a national stage against the champions of the Big 12, the Baylor Bears.

BCS Bowl Bound

Not much to say hear what has not already been said about the football season this year. An expected average team rose up this year and played some of their best games on the road and captured the inaugural American Athletic Conference Football Championship. After beating louisville on their own turf we took control of our own destiny and found a way to win every remaining game on the schedule and now BCS Bowl Bound!

Undisputed AAC Football Champions

At the beginning of the season we were predicted by the so-called "experts" to finish behind at least three other teams in the conference. The conference championship was already being handed to the louisville cardinals before a down had been played. Well I guess the prognosticators really did not do their homework on the over-achieving team from the East side of Orlando Florida. In their defense I knew we would be a top team but was not completely sure of how our young defense would hold up through the length of the season. Well we played well enough to win eleven out of twelve games games and that is no fluke. Yes we had our struggles throughout the season (Memphis, Temple),some of the "biggest wins in program history (Penn State, Louisville) and even stood toe to toe with one of the best teams in the SEC (South Carolina). Great teams find ways to win and that is what we did on more than one occasion giving us the most memorable season in our young programs history. Guess we better start building another trophy case.

Knights Ice the competition in Dallas

Another game with a struggling team, another game where we played down to the level of competition. First of all the reports coming out of Dallas were that the game might be cancelled because of the freak ice and snow that descended on the city in the days leading up to the game. The game would go on despite the weather conditions in the area and the lack of attendance would be a visual reminder of this. I have never been impressed with any crowd I have seen at SMU football games but this one was dismal even by their own standards. It looked cold as I was watching from the comfort of my living room and our players did not seem to have any type of heaters that you typically see on the sidelines of teams from up north. I don't want to say that this played into our less than stellar performance but the offense never seemed to get into any kind of rhythm. By the time Blake took a knee on the final play of the game none of the coldness would even matter as the team would head into the locker room to hoist the AAC football champions trophy over their heads as the undisputed champions of the league. With that this magical season will will wind up conclude with a trip to a BCS bowl.

Five years later, now 1 and 4

It had been five years since the heartbreak win against us in our house (the Brighthouse) and I have been counting the days until we would get a chance to finally shut the mouths of the south florida cows fans. The game did not play out as I wish it would have, with the good guys winning it only by a small margin but a win is a win no matter how ugly. We absolutely played down to the level of the competition on this game but this contest being a rivalry game you always have to throw out records and team performance up to this period in time. No longer can they say that we have never beaten them on the football field, never again. I am eagerly anticipating our next annual meeting with them at their house so we can close the gap of wins in the series even closer.

This game day was also special because we welcomed Annie to her first tailgate and I think she had a pretty good time. It was a little chilly later in the afternoon but she was kept warm.

Now we are 1 and 4 versus the usf bulls and can finally shut them up about how they are so much better than us as a program but more on that to come later. I know they are trying to brand the game the "I-4 Corridor Clash" which is not bad for a name but I still want to refer to it as "The I-4 War". We will have to wait and see how this plays out, for now here are the highlights from the game.

Never a doubt

From the beginning of the game until the final few seconds ticked off the clock there was never any doubt which team would be victorious on this Thursday knight game. Except for a bad special teams play near the end of the first half there was not to much to worry about for those who were wearing black and gold that knight. Will Stanback continued to show the American conference opponents why he is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the coming seasons. He showed incredible strength and power when he literally ran over a defender who was trying to make a tackle on him just a little too high. In the end it was wonderful to get a more convincing win than what we had experienced over the previous two contests.

The Catch

An amateur writer such as myself would not be able to describe in words the beauty and importance of the play shown above but I will tell you what I was thinking at the time. It was late in the game against a Temple football team who although they had shown improvement recently was surely a team that was down on its luck. We had played and beaten some very good football teams this season so why were we having so much trouble with Temple? This was the most upset I have ever been watching my Knights play football. I was almost throwing things around the room and at the TV. We did not have much time left on the clock and would have to somehow score at least a touchdown to even send the game into overtime. The offense had moved the ball well into Temple territory to about the 30 - 35 yard line-ish. Under pressure from the defense Blake rolled out into the flats and was facing another oncoming defender when he threw it toward the back of the end zone. I saw that JJ had gotten a lot of space between himself and the defender that was covering him and was looking to make the catch. I would later find out affter watching the replay a couple hundred times that Marc Daniels and I were thinking the same thing as we saw the play develop - "He over throws him!" - "OH MY GOODNESS - HE CAUGHT IT!!!! - WHAT A CATCH!!!!" I think Brian Williams of NBC said it best when he said "This is how we catch a pass in our dreams." Here is a clip from NBC (sorry about the crappy audiio).



 What remained of the rest of the game was the type of play that only teams of destiny know of. A great stop by the defense would get us the ball back with just a sliver of the game clock remaining. A great move and catch by another talented UCF receiver Rannell Hall, a short field goal with only a couple of ticks left on the clock, and this game is history and ours.

Catching Up

Alright I thought I had reasons for not entering anything into the blog and they were the usual ones when it comes to sports fanatics about their teams. I got it into my head somehow that making the blog entries on a weekly basis would do something to the magic that was found by our Knights football team this year. I was probably wrong. .....Or was I??? Having said that I will go ahead and skip over the most obvious win for now and pick up where I left off.