Bounce Back in the Bounce House: UCF trounces Huskies, 56-21

The winning streak is now at one!

The week after suffering a loss at Pittsburgh, UCF’s first in the regular season since 2016 that snapped a 27-game win streak, the No. 22-ranked Knights seemed to take out a level of frustration against out-manned Connecticut, rolling to a 56-21 win Saturday night at Spectrum Stadium.
Using its usual assortment of big offensive plays, the Knights rolled up 610 yards of offense. It was 42-0 at halftime.

This game was over before the second quarter started, as the Knights, thanks to forcing three turnovers in the first quarter, raced to a 28-0 lead in the first fifteen minutes.

This is the last time the teams will play, at least as members of the American Athletic Conference. The Huskies will re-join the Big East Conference, which does not have football, next year, and play on the gridiron as an independent.

The tone was set early. Antwan Collier’s interception on the third play of the game, returning it to the Huskies 35, and three plays later Greg McCrae found the end zone from one yard out.

Gabriel Davis, who caught five passes for 119 yards, caught the first of his three touchdown passes on a 73-yard connection, cornerback Nevelle Clarke returned an interception 48 yards for a score, and Adrian Killiins found paydirt on a 75-yard run.

All in the first quarter. The rout was on, taking away the bad taste of last week’s loss.
“We were locked in on both sides of the ball,” Davis said. “The main thing is we were 1-0 this week.” Killins said the whole team executed faster than last week.

“We’re the same UCF team as before that loss,” he said. “We expected to get off to fast start.”

Heupel said he saw “a lot of really positive things” Saturday.

“We had some big plays in the run and passing games,” he said. “The turnovers were huge, we weren’t on the right side of that last week.”
With defending their AAC championship now the big reward for this football season, the Knights face the next test — a big test — in Cincinnati on Friday at 8pm against the Bearcats in front of a national ESPN audience.