UCF Races past Mustangs to Host Huskies in a Dogfight

Read Time:1 Minute, 55 Second

When UCF went to face Southern Methodist in Dallas on November 4th, the Knights found themselves in big trouble. On their opening offensive drive, they were stopped on a fourth down. The Mustangs then responded with a big play and touchdown their opening drive. On top of that panic-inducing start, The Knights lost the turnover battle three to one. With all those setbacks, it’s easy to be critical of Central Florida’s performance. But the fact they still pulled out the 31-24 victory has led plenty to see this as an accomplishment in facing adversity.

The Knights’ center, Jordan Johnson, said this of his team’s ability to keep succeeding past their current 8-0 record, “A lot of people, when they come undefeated, they’re just trying to survive. They’re just trying to stay undefeated and what-not, but we don’t want to have that mindset. We don’t want to just get through games. Our coach used the word prevail [on Monday] and he described it as proving that you’re as good as everybody thinks you are or proving people wrong that don’t think you’re as good as you actually are.”

With the Huskies of the University of Connecticut next on the schedule, their starting signal caller is a probable no-go due to concussion protocol. UCF Head Coach Scott Frost said this of the upcoming opponents, “I see a team that’s improving. I think from the beginning of the year to where they are now they’ve made huge improvements. Defensively, they’re a little bit different scheme to what we’ve seen up to this point. Offensively, it looks like they’re getting better all the time and putting up points. In this conference, I’ve said it a bunch, you have to be at your best to beat everybody. And I think if you’re not, anybody in this league can get you. We need to prepare well and put our players in good positions and be them and make plays.”

While the Huskies may not look impressive on paper as the Mustangs do with only a 3-5 record overall, you can tell that Coach Frost and his players are just as focused as ever to avoid falling into an upset loss.