College Football Eve - The FIU game preview

Since this is the beginning of the season I do not know too much about our opponent tomorrow.  They seem to have a good defensive line and linebackers that could make running the ball a problem for us.  We'll have to see how the new receiving corps handles the game time situation.  I have full confidence in Justin in that he will be able to get the ball to his receivers throughout the game.  I can't make any predictions on the games outcome because of course I see the world through black and gold glasses.  I just hope the young players that need to step up do so and start us off on the right foot as we prepare to defend the championship of the American Athletic Conference.

Go Knights! #ChargeOn

2015 Football Wish List

Last night during a period of deep sleep the college football gods came to me in a dream and asked me what my wishes were for the upcoming 2015 football season.  I have been giving it a small amount of thought and hadn't really put much effort in to what I would like to see most in this upcoming season.  Not wanting to anger the college football gods with my indecisiveness, I ventured into the schedule and came up with my wishes for UCF Football 2015. OK I know that when I have conversations with other Knights fans on a wish list for the upcoming season, the comment "You mean besides winning the conference and beating the cows?" always comes up because these items kind of go without saying.  However, even though these are always on my annual wish list (actually they are on my perennial list because there are other sports than football) but we are talking about football right now so they will be added because they are wishes.

1. Just like last year this year is no different.  We need to keep our momentum from the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl win going.  In order to accomplish that we have to win at least one of our two games this year versus our "power five" opponents.  I'm talking about a win against either Stanford or South Carolina.  One of these games in my opinion is a must win for us to keep the credibility that we earned from beating the Big 12 champion Baylor Bears about a year and a half ago in Glendale Arizona.
2. I contemplated this next one for a while only because I feel that this one really goes without saying but here it is anyway: BEAT THE BULLS!  Actually the details for this wish would be to see us return the favor from 2007 and really put some deep hurting on them by lighting up the scoreboard like a pinball machine.
3. Three-peat! Host and win the AAC football championship game. Another one that kind of goes without saying.
4. Put UCONN back in their place after our bad performance last against them.
5. Another bowl game trophy is kind of important and would definitely help our brand out tremendously, especially winning against a "power five conference" team.

So there you have it, my wish list for 2015.

Go Knights!  #ChargeOn

Not the finish I was hoping for - Bowl and Season review.

The bowl game was a bit of a letdown considering the wave of emotion we were riding after the game winning touchdown against ECU.  I really believed that our defense was up for the challenge against a very good NC State team.  We battled back late in the game like we always do but unfortunately we gave up too many points earlier that made it difficult to overcome.  Close game at the end but we just came up short.  I think it was the same attack that UConn used in their upset win (and our only conference loss in two seasons) over us midway through the season.  We seem to have trouble containing mobile quarterbacks and it was all too evident as the NC State signal caller was able to gain plenty of yardage. Hopefully we can fix this before the start of next season.  It was good to see at the end of the game that the team never gave up and kept battling to the end.  Player of the game was Josh Reese with his three touchdowns and some crucial late 3rd down conversions. That shows that the team has confidence that they are always in the game as long as there is time left on the clock.


It is true that this team exceeded expectations and did so by winning another conference championship (yeah I know we had to share it with two other teams).  I believe that most people figured that we would have a down year after losing Blake Bortles to the NFL.  Justin had some rough times in some of his early games but more than proved he belongs in the starting role with a great performance against BYU.  That performance against BYU showed what Justin was capable of because BYU had pretty much shut down our run game and our offense had become one dimensional.  We were still able to move the ball despite BYU knowing that we were relying on the passing game heavily.  I think that even though the offense was inconsistent at times, the defense kept us in most of the games with a few exceptions.  The special teams play was good but not great.  Hats off to Shawn Moffit for becoming the leading scorer in UCF football history.

When it is all said and done, winning the Conference championship is the ultimate goal for each of our teams regardless of the sport.  Anything beyond that is icing on the cake.  Oh yeah, beating the west central florida cows on their own turf was definitely one of the seasons highlights.  Here's to a third win against the cows and a three-peat conference championship next season!

Go Knights! #ChargeOn

Hail Perriman!

Like most away games I was watching the game from the comfort of my living room that evening and could have never guessed how the game would unfold.  We were in a good position going into that Knight game for a chance to win a share of the AAC football title.  In our way was an ECU football team that played very well throughout the season with the exception of a few bumps in the road (namely Temple and Cincinatti).  They were playing for pride and for the opportunity to be a spoiler for our season that turned out very well.  Everything went well for us through most of the game until the guys in purple got a big momentum swing along with 21 points in the fourth quarter.  They continued to ride that wave now with a lead all the way to the ten second mark left in the game.  That is until the game clock read 00:10.  I'll admit it, I had almost completely given up at that point (almost that is, maybe 98%) after seeing us cruise through three really strong quarters only to see our championship hopes wither away as the game clock progressed toward the end of regulation play.

There our offense was, on the field in Greenville North Carolina with only an absolutely slim chance of pulling off a last second desperation heave towards paydirt.  One thing I never doubted for a second was the ability of Justin to be able to reach the end zone with his strong arm.  I was doubting our ability to give him the type of protection that he needed to buy him enough time to make the type of pass required to win the ball game given the poor execution in the previous couple of drives by the offensive line.  From our own 35 yard line with ten ticks of the clock left, would he heave the ball from here or would we try some sort of gadget play to get us in the end zone? Remember though at this time I was pretty disgusted with the turn of events that put us in the situation but as a loyal Knight I am always with the team all the way to the end so I sat and watched.  Holman drops back to pass and finds Josh Reese with a perfect pass and catch on an out pattern to move us 14 yards closer to the destination.

Five seconds left (00:05).  Having no timeouts left we line up quickly, Holman one last time of the night drops back to pass, not much pressure on him he steps up and launches the ball into the cool night air. I'd already played this down over in my head a couple of times by now and the outcome was the same: the ball gets knocked down by a group of defenders or just falls harmlessly to the ground.  It is a play that all football fans have seen many times before and the result is almost always the same, incomplete pass, game over.  As I expected, a group of three defenders were standing in and around the end zone waiting for the ball to come down.  As they jump up to reach for the ball, Breshad gets just behind them at the goal line and comes down into his waiting grasp and his momentum carries him into the end zone for the final play of the game.  TOUCHDOWN!!!  OH MY GOD!  OH MY GOD! DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN???!!! KNIGHTS WIN!!!!

What an incredible way to end a game and a season.  It will join all of the other greatest plays in UCF Football history and give us another trophy to put in the case at home.





Let's go Bowling!

Go Knights! #ChargeOn   - Never Yield!

Shutout in Tampa

No still it was not the type of score that I had been wanting for the last couple of years but I will take it any day of the week. The most interesting stat of the game was five (5) yards rushing for the bull turds. I had listened to the hype that was coming out of Tampa during the year that usf had a legitimate running threat and I was hoping that we would be able to contain him. We more than contained him though - we pretty much shut him down, allowing him only 32 yards rushing on 11 caries. Their QB's were caught behind the line for about -30 yards in losses which hurt their total yards for the game. Our offense looked good at times and their defense looked good at times but in the end we scored enough points to win - 16 and the Knight faithful could enjoy a happy trip back to Orlando (or wherever they call home). One of the memorable plays from the game was the attempt by their field goal kicker late in the first half. The bools had been moving the ball well on that drive only to implode by making some mistakes that only allowed them a field goal attempt.  Well within the range of their kicker, the kick was up, long enough and then "Klank!" - it hits the upright giving the Knight faithful something else to cheer about.  The second half did not see any scoring by either offense but our "D" got two points for the safety in the third quarter to put us on top 16-0 for good.  The rest of the game was all about trying to preserve the shutout which we accomplished.  Hey bull turds! How does that doughnut taste?

Really looking forward to next years match-up!

Go Knights! #ChargeOn

Complete domination

Talk about two teams going in opposite directions. Yes it is true we had experienced a few bumps in the road leading up to the home contest against the hapless SMU Mustangs but calling SMU hapless was actually an understatement. We scored early, quickly, and often. On defense we did not allow them to move the ball at all. We crushed UConn the previous year 62 - 7 but other than that, I can't think of a game that we so totally dominated in all facets of the game. On a personal note I sat next to a pretty big guy during the first half of the game and I could not help notice the large ring he was wearing on his finger. It turns out that big guy was Jordan McCray and he was very cordial to me. I thanked him for the part he played in the success of the greatest season in Knight football history. I told him that I noticed his ring and kind of figured out who he was (I was 90% certain that it was him and not his brother Justin who plays for the Tennessee Titans). He let me off the hook and introduced himself as Jordan McCray and then proceeded to take off his ring and very graciously allowed me to get a closer look at it. (This is not my photo but this is what the ring looked like).  Thank you very much Jordan that was a very special gesture - your parents obviously raised you right.

Back to the game, it was a very wet game that day and the crowd size was a little disappointing, but I guess given the lack of competition that day i suppose many chose not to show up?  - Slackers!  As expected we took our foot off the gas pedal in the second half (on offense anyway).  The defense was just short of a shutout but that's alright we got to put in a group of second team players for some field time.  In the end it was definitely two teams going in the opposite direction.

Go Knights!  #ChargeOn

Knights Bounce Back Against Tulsa

Tulsa had been struggling since we last met them in the Conference USA Championship game back in December of 2012.  It was a combination of that struggling team and some home cooking that we needed to get the bad taste from the loss to Connecticut out of our mouths.  From the beginning and all the way through to the end this game was never in doubt.  Defensively we shut down their passing game completely.  Offensively we did not have a complete game in that we had difficulty scoring in both the first and last quarter.  The two quarters in between though were a different story with our offense moving the ball easily up and down the field and scoring almost all of our points.  The weather was beautiful that Knight although more on the chilly side than I was expecting.  I wore shorts to the game and spent most of the time regretting that decision.  It was just a little too breezy to leave the long pants in the tailgate-mobile.  Actually since this was a Friday Knight game, time did not permit us to take advantage of the usual tailgate but we did take some time to walk around campus prior to kickoff.  I thought the early evening tailgating scene was actually pretty nice with several setups having some light effects.  Overall it was a good game for the team to get back in the win column and move ahead with the rest of the season.

Go Knights! #ChargeOn

Five Months Later

Five months later I am still trying to figure out what I just witnessed.  Our favorite football team traveled up to Connecticut and played one of the worst games of the year.  Too many turnovers by the offense and the defense was struggling mightily to contain a dual threat quaterback.  Next to playing SMU, I figured this was a game that should have been one of the easier match-ups of the year.  I was woefully wrong however and we lost a very winnable game to a team that was not much better than they were the previous year.  I still have to tip the cap to the winner, they did what they had to do to win and took one away from us.

Go Knights! #ChargeOn !

Next up, the Owls

This was one of the games last year that I was a little concerned about.  The previous contest against the Temple Owls showed some of our defensive weaknesses as well as an offense that was not in sync for parts of the game.  I really expected more of the same from their quarterback that we saw in Philadelphia in 2013.  I was proven wrong when P.J. walker proved to be rather ineffective against our defense that was getting stronger with every passing game.  We punched them in the mouth early on and jumped out to a pretty comfortable lead by halftime.  I think we let up on the gas pedal just a little to early but the defense shut the Owl offense down completely in the second half. It was the type of win I really wanted to see from the team after the previous lackluster performance against Tulane.

Go Knights! #ChargeOn !

Catching up

Well I may have let the football season and time slip by by not posting anything since about the middle of the season.  That's bad on me.  I will now try and hit some of the highlights from the rest of the football season starting with the home game against Tulane.

It was probably one of the tougher games of the year at home although no disrespect to Tulane, I think we just really played down to their level and could not get any kind of rhythm going on offense the entire 60 minutes.  This one definitely fell under the category for ugly wins but it was a win nonetheless.  It was one of the most frustrating games I can remember watching in a while.  Justin was struggling the whole game but fortunately we did just enough to win.

Go Knights!  #ChargeOn !