So mad, I had this whole thing written up and lost it so this is now the 2nd take which is never as good as the first…
It truly amazes me how UCF can be so dominating in a game and then flip the script to the complete opposite and get dominated in the same game. It would be one thing if this game was an outlier but we have seen this play out numerous times over the last few years including last year in the same stadium against usf. It is just hard for me to understand how we look the way we did in that first quarter, score 14 pts in a blink of an eye, don’t let Tech even get a yard of offense on their first few possessions, literally drive 98 yards for our 2nd score and then muster only 3 more pts the rest of the game? How is that possible? It is one thing if we were playing good and then bad but we were playing out of our minds incredible and then went the complete opposite direction. We appeared to have more talent, speed, size, etc… it is hard for me to process and this is becoming a trend for Gus. My only thought is that when any bit of adversity hits we don’t fight through it like we should. We tighten up, we start playing nervous like we are expecting bad things to happen and then they do. Basically the opposite of how we played in 17 with Milton. In this game we were about to go up 21 and we had the Harvey fumble, then dropped TD from Hudson, then missed fg and squandering pts for half, then forego fg for 4th and 13 after converting it only for it to get reversed with holding call. It is like we kept punching ourselves in the balls instead of just putting the BS behind us and playing hard. It is a crazy thing to behold. NOTE I watched game in person, I did not watch it back yet so may have missed some pts so keep that in mind…
UCF Fast: Would have been a lot different had I given these out after the first quarter…
PS: I may do a post season awards Fast & Slow if I get time this week.
It truly amazes me how UCF can be so dominating in a game and then flip the script to the complete opposite and get dominated in the same game. It would be one thing if this game was an outlier but we have seen this play out numerous times over the last few years including last year in the same stadium against usf. It is just hard for me to understand how we look the way we did in that first quarter, score 14 pts in a blink of an eye, don’t let Tech even get a yard of offense on their first few possessions, literally drive 98 yards for our 2nd score and then muster only 3 more pts the rest of the game? How is that possible? It is one thing if we were playing good and then bad but we were playing out of our minds incredible and then went the complete opposite direction. We appeared to have more talent, speed, size, etc… it is hard for me to process and this is becoming a trend for Gus. My only thought is that when any bit of adversity hits we don’t fight through it like we should. We tighten up, we start playing nervous like we are expecting bad things to happen and then they do. Basically the opposite of how we played in 17 with Milton. In this game we were about to go up 21 and we had the Harvey fumble, then dropped TD from Hudson, then missed fg and squandering pts for half, then forego fg for 4th and 13 after converting it only for it to get reversed with holding call. It is like we kept punching ourselves in the balls instead of just putting the BS behind us and playing hard. It is a crazy thing to behold. NOTE I watched game in person, I did not watch it back yet so may have missed some pts so keep that in mind…
UCF Fast: Would have been a lot different had I given these out after the first quarter…
- Javon Baker: I have felt all season that he has been a mismatch in UCF’s favor and even though he has had decent stats we could have used him more. He always seems open between his size, speed, route running, hands, catch radius. I know he is a lot off the field but on the field he is really really good. I am just perplexed why we didn’t continue to go to him after he made it look like he was being covered by a High School kid in the 1st quarter. Glad he is coming back.
- Decorian Patterson: I know it wasn’t the season we had all through it would be for him but he played really solid tonight filling in for Thornton. He tackled well, had to make a lot of run support tackles unfortunately. Covered well, thought he played a solid game. In the end whether it was him or Thornton not sure it would have changed anything this year though.
- Hard Rock Craps: I am a craps player, first time in my life I was able to play legitimate craps at a Florida Casino. I always said that was the dumbest ass law that the casino could have black jack and roulette but no craps. Glad that stupidness is done. Went up big in the afternoon prior to leaving for the game. Came back late that night played into the early morning spewing it all back and then some. Fun as hell though.
- Harvey Fumble: He is too damn good to fumble as much as he does. He just cant fumble there. If he didn’t we would have had 1st down with in 30 yards of Tech endzone up 14-0. Complete momentum shift and started the crap flowing downhill that i alluded to above. We literally scored 3pts for the rest of the game. This fumble likely cost us points. Other then the fumble he had a solid game, avg 8 yards a carry, only got 15 carries which is another issue. Totally abandoned the run for some unknown reason, playing like we were down 14 when we were down 3.
- Kobe: Much like my note about Harvey above, Kobe is too damn good to drop so many passes. That was a HUGE drop in the endzone. Great ball from JRP, we do end up making that field goal but that is a 4pt swing. It all added up in this game.
- Boomer: Another really confounding thing for me is how this kid looks automatic, cant miss EVER to what we are dealing with now where we cannot even trust him from anywhere on the field. How the hell did this change so much in the matter of a few games. I know we joke about having the yips but he went from one of the strengths of the team to a liability. Boomer cost us at least 6pts today. I wish I had the backstory on this, is it really in his head or is there an injury or what? Even his kick offs were so short, I thought maybe that was by design but he routinely put those in the back of the endzone and then last night and in other games they have come up lame. Ever since Texas Tech he has been a different player.
- Gus: I think he had two especially bad calls during the game, the first was not running another play before half with 8 seconds. We had 3 yards to first down and not that much further to endzone. I realize we have squandered these possessions in the past and that is likely what factored into his decision making to kick the fg but the fact we missed it was just brutal. In my opinion you got to roll out JRP and give him 2 reads and he throws it away if it isn’t there and you kick. You had plenty of time to do that and even if a bone headed play resulted in getting tackled short of the endzone you likely have time to spike it because clock would stop for first down although it would be tight. Again, if he makes the kick this isn’t as brutal of a decision but we have to get points there. 2nd was to forego the field goal and go for it on 4th and 13. I get why you would do that down 21 but at that point we were down just 3 pts. That is a very makeable field goal. Obviously, he lost all trust in Boomer but it is a 3pt game, it is the 3rd quarter. I rather Boomer miss it then to go for it in that position, I think it looked like a panicked decision. Like we had to get a TD or the game was over type thing. Bad for team psyche in my opinion and even with Boomer kicking badly the chances of converting 4th and 13 vs. a 40 something yard fg cannot be that great, if it was 4th and short obviously you go for it like we did the play before. This is just another decision that plays into the whole game script of letting things continue to fall apart playing tight.
- Run Defense: Another confounding point for me is HOW we are still unable to stop the run. It has been an issue all season and we haven’t been able to fix it or even look like we have made strides to fix it. Tech completed 7 passes. It was like watching Navy. They ran it every time and we knew it was coming and could do nothing to stop it. This is with a DL that was fully healthy and playing as far as I could see, Hunter, Barber, Brash, Celiscar, had all the LBs out there, I get they have struggled all year to stop the run but this had to be a major point of focus AND we went up 14-0 which usually means the opposing team will need to pass and we let them off the hook. Painful to watch us get gashed for 10 yards every time, another 290 yard rushing performance, 175 in the second half!!! How?
- Karen Trying to Kick me Out of Suite: Went into a Tech suite to say high to GOL. I was invited in, with a bunch of x players for Tech but was wearing UCF gear. I was not eating or drinking anything nor was I cheering or being belligerent. I was just standing in the back talking to the guys. This lady aggressively came up to me said I had to leave for wearing a UCF logo on jacket. I thought she had to be kidding at first, so did everyone else, but she kept getting crazier and crazier about it. Came at me multiple times over the course of 10 or so minutes. Such an odd moment. She gets a slow for being an imbecile. Mind you UCF was losing by 10+ at this point, early 4th quarter.
PS: I may do a post season awards Fast & Slow if I get time this week.
