The 4-6 UCF Knights take their final road trip of the regular season to play the 5-5 West Virginia Mountaineers. The Knights need to win their remaining two games to become bowl-eligible. The game will take place on Saturday at 3:30 pm ET at Milan Puskar Stadium and air on ESPNU. Let’s take a look at the matchup.
The Home Stretch
UCF begins their final stretch of the season after a bye week to rest up, give quarterback Dylan Rizk some more time to work with the starting unit and try and improve the mental preparedness of the team. At 4-6, the Knights only have two games remaining. UCF’s first challenge will be to play West Virginia in Morgantown. The Knights, losers of five of their last six games, will need to step up if they want to be the first UCF squad since the winless season of 2015 to not go to a bowl game.
During UCF’s five-of-six losing skid, they had three one-score losses where they had the ball in their hands in the last minute with a chance to win. The first game was against Cincinnati. The defense stepped up and kept a potent Bearcats offense in check. The offense was still trying to figure themselves out and sputtered. The Knights got close but ran out of time on what could have been the winning drive. The second was against Iowa State. UCF exploded in the first half and then held on for dear life in the second. Eventually, the Cyclones scored the go-ahead touchdown with 0:32 left on the clock. The third was against Arizona State. UCF’s offense heavily outplayed Arizona State’s it was some bad mental mistakes that allowed the Sun Devils to score some opportunistic points and pick up the win.
West Virginia’s point average point differential is minus four on the season(396-400). This has the chance to be a very close game.
Who Are the West Virginia Mountaineers?
West Virginia is one of the all-time winningest programs, ranking in the top 20 in wins among the FBS teams. The majority of the Mountaineers’ history from their birth in 1891 to 1991 is as an independent, but they did spend some time in the Southern Conference in the 1950s and 1960s. During West Virginia’s 18 years in the SoCon, they won eight conference titles. In 1991, West Virginia joined the Big East. West Virginia had their best season in 1993 when they went undefeated during the regular season and were ranked third before falling apart in their bowl game to finish 11-1. It wasn’t until Rich Rodriguez became coach in the 2000s that the Mountaineers started to dominate the conference. In RichRod’s seven seasons from 2001-2007, he won four conference championships and three top-ten finishes. Since joining the Big 12 in 2012, West Virginia has struggled to develop a top-end program, winning ten games only one time in 2016.
The current edition of West Virginia is a running team like UCF. At quarterback is Garrett Greene. Greene has struggled with passing the ball this year but is a dangerous runner, accumulating 600 yards rushing. That’s second-best on the team behind top running back Jahiem White, who leads the team with 639 yards and 116 carries. Also in the mix is CJ Donaldson, who has almost as many carries as White, but only 525 yards. This three-headed rushing attack is their bread and butter. When he does have to throw, Greene has a talented trio in wide receivers Hudson Clement, Traylon Ray, and tight end Kole Taylor. Linebacker Josiah Trotter leads the Big 12 in assisted tackles with 48 and lineman TJ Jackson leads the conference with 12 tackles for loss.
UCF’s Offense
Two weeks ago, UCF had to shift from being a run-first team to a pass-first team due to the first-half ineffectiveness of the run game. Rizk rose to the occasion. The game plan from Gus Malzahn and Tim Harris to utilize the back-shoulder pass worked very well with wide receiver Jacoby Jones being a consistent target. This helped UCF convert on third and fourth downs. Out of Jones’ seven receptions, six were on third or fourth down and they all were successful conversions. In the second half, the passing game took a back seat as the running game was able to re-establish itself behind RJ Harvey. Harvey and company have the fourth-highest rushing yards per game with 262.8 yards. Harvey is third in the nation in both total rushing yards and yards per game. The flow of the game will still need to go through Harvey, but Rizk has proven that he can take the wheel and drive UCF’s offense when needed.
UCF Knights vs West Virginia Mountaineers Predictions
Before the bye week, UCF blew a winnable game against a short-handed Arizona State. There is no more margin of error if the Knights want to play in the postseason. While West Virginia is mathematically still in the hunt for the Big 12 championship, it would need a considerable amount of help. UCF is favored over West Virginia by three. UCF’s rushing defense combined with the bye week will help the Knights finally get past their mental miscues for a win. UCF wins 31-27 to set up an all-or-nothing showdown next week. This is the fourth meeting between the two schools with West Virginia leading the series 3-0.
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