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Posted on July 26

UCF under 7½

Scott Frost did a great job taking over a UCF team that was 0-12 the season prior, guiding the Knights to a bowl with six wins. Upon closer inspection, though, those six wins came versus an FCS foe that had a losing record and five FBS teams that had losing records (18-42 combined). This season, the Knights face six bowl teams from 2016 and have only four returning starters on defense. With these precepts taken into consideration, one of last season’s renaissance teams maybe be due for attrition here in 2017.

Generally, the uptick in Golden Knight victories could spawn some fanfare that perhaps this brand of UCF football could be on its way back to its pinnacle during the Blake Bortles era in which UCF would climb as high as winning a Fiesta Bowl against a top-six opponent in Baylor. However, the Knights are a long way off from achieving such feats. UCF could find itself demoralized after the first month of football, as they have not one but three difficult tests to kick-off their follow-up to 2016. First, UCF has to take all those new defensive starters to face perhaps one of the most dynamic offenses in the American Athletic Conference, the Memphis Tigers. Memphis features a gifted quarterback in Riley Ferguson and he can go off if UCF’s novice starters roll-out the red carpet for him. In addition, the Knights find themselves hosting Georgia Tech in Orlando following their Week Two collision with Memphis at home. UCF could easily be 1-2 after just Week 3 and then have to take to the road to face a touted Big 10 team in Maryland.

How Frost navigates the first month of play will tell us all we need to know about what to expect with this UCF team. However, if things go terribly wrong, a distinct possibility indeed, this outfit can find itself with its head hanging low before embarking on a tumultuous backstretch of conference play where they must take the road to face Navy, travel to the defending champions Temple, and follow it up at home with a showdown with what has been classed as a viable Group of Five New Year’s Six contender in South Florida. Another 6-6 season is not of the question here if UCF is forced to live and die by its “UCFast” offense. We know how that story goes time and time again for teams that try to win games by lighting up the scoreboard. It rarely ends well. Thus, we’ll hold our horses on UCF and strongly suggest that 7½ is a big overreaction to what they accomplished last year.

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