If someone would have told me at the start of this season we were going to win 9 games and beat UF in a Bowl Game I would have took that shit no hesitation. This season started out with such high hopes and tremendous adversity tempered those but to finish how we did and beat UF in Ray Jay, our home away from home, it was almost too perfect. The game went pretty much how i thought it would play out. I predicted 24-20 Knights win with solid defense and points being hard to come by. There were no turnovers in the game which was pretty amazing considering the set up but there were plenty of close plays. The Gatewood pass should have been picked, both teams had kickoffs they almost fielded back (MAR had one of the best plays of the game jumping on ours to retain possession), several other close ones. In the end UCF dug deeper to pull that one out. You can see we took their will in the 4th quarter. It was a beautiful thing to witness live especially for someone that witnessed both losses at UF, we have come a long way no doubt…
UCF Fast:
Incredible Knight, incredible season considering all the obstacles we had to overcome. Anyone at UF that was saying shit about not having a coach can eat a D because they had their starting QB playing and we were on our true freshman 18 year old kid plus the amount of big time injuries to big time players was a material impact to UCF so the opt outs or injuries to UF clearly had an impact on them but you cannot argue it was more of an impact the UCFs situation so lets not even go there. I am hoping this gives us that recruiting momentum we need to close out the transfer portal and push into the Big 12. Cant wait for Spring Ball, Go KNIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
UCF Fast:
- ROK & Bowser: They had to account for 85% of our offense. Both guys were on fire for us last night. Bowser looked like he did in the opener and ROK showed out every time he touched the ball. The play of the night being the bomb to ROK where he deuced the defense. That was such an incredible moment and a great ode to Juice. 2 would be proud smiling down on us no doubt for that. As for Bowser the Gators knew at the end he was getting the ball and they couldn’t stop him. Had Gus not stopped us trying to get cute we would have continued to roll over them for what seemed like a 10 minute drive. Will stealing type drive. Loved it. Please come back for 2022 big man.
- Defense & Twill: The whole defense came to play. Guys were flying to the ball, tackling well, playing with emotion. Game plan was solid, guys executed great. Cam, Bethune Big Kat, Hodges, Brown all had great games. Love how Big Kat didn’t sit out or even pussy foot around it, he played like a Captain should not like a sock sales man would. Really excited for our future secondary. Hodges, Thornton, Brown are studs, got some great players coming in, who knows with the portal, defense should only be better next year especially if Kalia comes back which he should.
- ZFG: ZFG was on full display last night. Coaching was a huge difference in last nights game. You can see it on the Gators side, the inexperience at HC was hurting them. The fact they had the ball in the same place three different times on our side of the field and did three different things (went for it, 51 yard no chance field goal & punt). Should have kicked the FG on the first one and went for it on the other two. Just poor coaching. Gus called a solid game. I still think Gus gets bored and unnecessarily tries to spice up his play calling. The 2pt conversion attempt I hated. Clearly Bowser is in domination mode and Gus starts trying to throw with Gatewood which was almost a disaster. Other times we are in control of the game and we are attempting double passes or way to cute short pass routes. We are lucky we didn’t take a game changing type turn over. The fact that Gus tends to do this when we seemingly have the drive-in hand and are closing in on scoring is maddening but overall Gus coached extremely well, deserves an incredible amount of credit and props for this season including his transfer portal gets. If Hype was still our coach I can promise you, even with DG playing all season, we don’t have this good of a season long result. Defense alone, who the hell would have been playing?
- Offensive Line: You don’t run for 250+ yards against an SEC defense with out your offensive line having a game and they absolutely did last night. Especially in the 2nd half, they were engaging blockers, getting to the 2nd level, they looked solid all night. I hope Schneider comes back, that would be HUGE.
- Alex Ward: I have never given any long snapper a UCF Fast but Alex is Mr. Consistent and has a great attitude and deserves lots of credit. I hope he has a 15-year NFL career long snapping. Well done sir.
- UCF Fans: We were loud AF. It was obvious to me our fan base brought more energy and passion to the game. I get why it meant more to us but it was still an obvious difference between the two. Anytime any good music came on all of us were jumping like crazy like a sea of black. Well done brothers & sisters. We deserved this one. As for the fight that broke out in my section with UCF on UCF fan violence. That was stupid. How bad do things have to get that you would be willing to get yourself kicked out of that game and miss beating UF just to punch another UCF fan? Stupid.
Incredible Knight, incredible season considering all the obstacles we had to overcome. Anyone at UF that was saying shit about not having a coach can eat a D because they had their starting QB playing and we were on our true freshman 18 year old kid plus the amount of big time injuries to big time players was a material impact to UCF so the opt outs or injuries to UF clearly had an impact on them but you cannot argue it was more of an impact the UCFs situation so lets not even go there. I am hoping this gives us that recruiting momentum we need to close out the transfer portal and push into the Big 12. Cant wait for Spring Ball, Go KNIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
