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While UCF has had a rough go at conference play early in the year, there’s still a small chance that they might find themselves in a revenge game for the American Athletic Conference Championship, battling the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.
Of course, that starts with them hosting the Temple Owls Saturday night at 7:30 pm EST on ESPNU. While it seems like an easy victory, there still plenty of reasons for Knight Fans to pay attention this weekend.
Temple is a program that has only one win in 2020, but they are a team that plays everyone tough. In their losses to Navy and Memphis, the Owls only lost by two points. UCF Head Coach Josh Heupel explained that “[Temple] is always a team and a program that prides itself on their ability to play extremely hard. You see that on tape as a football team that’s lost some close balls games here in the fourth quarter.”
Heupel continued, “They’ve been nicked up a little bit through COVID and a little bit through some injuries, but I think they’re getting a lot of their guys back on both sides of the ball for this one. It’s a big test for us. “
While the mantra of Coach Heupel to go 1-0 for yet another week must hold true, the Knights still need help to their keep American Athletic Conference Championship hopes alive. SMU, Memphis and Cincinnati must all lose another game in the next three weeks and UCF needs to win out to have hope.
The irony in all of this is that the best chance to succeed falls to Tulsa, the team that UCF first lost to in their third game of the year. The toughest game on the schedule for two of these teams is none other than the Golden Hurricane themselves.
They battle the Mustangs of SMU this weekend at 7:00 pm EST and then the Bearcats on December 4th in Oklahoma. However, with Memphis holding the tie-breaker over the Knights, they would need to fall to Navy (in a game that’s currently postponed), Stephen F. Austin (a member of the Southland Conference in the FCS), Tulane, or Houston.
While hope seems bleak with the Tigers’ relative ease of schedule, they barely squeaked by hapless USF 34-33 this past weekend to keep them winless in addition to their aforementioned close scrape with the Owls.
Put it another way, I’m telling you there’s a chance.
