UCF was rolling through the first half of its season opener against FIU. It looked like the Knights and their fans would be able to celebrate a season-opening home win.
Then the second half started, and everything seemed to stop. Like it all stopped.
The Knights’ offense slowed to a crawl. The defense got beaten up on both lines and UCF could not recover. Conservative play calling did not help either as UCF gave up an opportunity to kick a close field goal by relying on a run offense that was not generating any push for an entire game.
It was a frustrating watch for any UCF fan. The confidence from a great half seemed to be sucked dry by the second.
There might have been a bit more to it, unfortunately.
740 The Game producer Mike Venditti reports UCF play callers may have taken playcalling away from Justin Holman when the team got within 25 yards of a score:
My source also tells me that a “Wild Knight” formation has been in the works, and was used once in the season opener when Nick Patti rushed for a 2-yard gain. Maybe this can help get the running game going, but if that’s the case why only run it once against FIU? I know you don’t want to tip your hand too much with a Power-5 opponent next on the schedule, but when you’re on the verge of losing to what was supposed to be a lesser team you should probably pull out all of the stops.
Holman finished the game 23 for 34 for 249 yards and two touchdowns. Overall, that seems like a solid game.
Pushing the focus tighter on those plays within 25 yards reveals something a bit different.
In that situation, UCF ran five rushes for one yard and three passes for 28 yards and a touchdown, a holding penalty for 10 yards and a fumble. In the first half, UCF scored a touchdown on Holman’s first touchdown pass to Akins from 12 yards out.
The Knights did not have a lot of plays that close to the goal line. Most of the them came on UCF’s first touchdown drive. The majority of the rest of UCF’s plays within 25 yards came on the final, decisive drive.
The big takeaway was how it was emblematic of the Knights’ inability to run the ball.
But O’Leary certainly admitted a change of strategy when the Knights got close and in field goal range late in the game during his Monday press conference (h/t Shannon Green of the Orlando Sentinel):
“We hadn’t been good down in the red zone, I was more worried about a deflected pass and not having an opportunity to win the game. Plus, they were sending seven guys in the pass rush and I was worried about getting out of field goal range with a sack or something like that and I wanted to make sure that they utilized some of their timeouts. They didn’t get it back with a minute or something less and three timeouts left and all they needed was a field goal to win, so that was the thought process behind it.”
It does seem conservatism and concern late in the game got into the playcalling some. It was not up to Holman to make the calls — if it ever was throughout the game.
O’Leary bemoaned the team’s tentativeness throughout the game and the week of preparation for FIU. Something he will have to resolve moving forward for UCF even to compete against the formerly ranked Stanford team.
The Knights have a lot of work to do and have to regain confidence to move forward from this game and prepare for Stanford this weekend.
