It’s going to be a small handful of months before Scott Frost and his UCF Knights come to Lubbock, but it’s absolutely still worth keeping an eye on how they’re doing and seeing how they’re representing the Big 12 to get the season started.
And, well, they’re unbeaten. Unblemished record. Perfect start. But, uh, it wasn’t perfect. It was a mess. That week 1, Thursday night win over the Jacksonville State Gamecocks was full of moments that had to have been incredibly frustrating for UCF fans to sit back and watch. The offense generated yards, but it only scored 17 points.
There’s not a doubt in my mind that this seven-point win over a team breaking in a brand new coach is going to cause an abundance of frustration for UCF fans and Big 12 leaders.
What happened in UCF’s narrow win over Jacksonville State?
This was a low scoring game all throughout. UCF’s offense just did not get to clicking and that allowed Jacksonville State to go field goal for field goal with UCF in the third quarter and then for the Gamecocks to claim a 10-3 lead over the Knights in the early part of the fourth quarter.
However, a couple of impressive touchdown passes that went for over 30 yards from Tayven Jackson allowed the Knights to squeak out a 17-10 win over Jacksonville State.
The win was underwhelming, but it was still a win for the Knights and the Big 12.
Why does this UCF game matter to the Big 12?
It’s not too much of something that matters in terms of long term consequences or anything of that nature. UCF isn’t expected to be a team that competes for the conference championship and the Knights just generally aren’t expected to be all that impressive of a team this year.
The only way this game would have had any sort of lasting impact is if the Gamecocks had been the team to come out on top of this one. And that just wasn’t the case. Jacksonville State did well to contend and put UCF in a tough situation, but the Knights won. And while there will be some jokes here and there aimed at Frost and UCF over how close this game was, it’s still a win.
When will UCF and Texas Tech play?
Joey McGuire and the Texas Tech Red Raiders will get the luxury of playing against UCF later this season and it’s going to come late in the year. I’m sure the game will be here before any of us know it because time flies when you’re having fun during the college football season, but it’s going to be one of the last games of the year.
Frost and UCF will show up in Lubbock on Nov. 15 for a game that doesn’t have a kickoff time just yet. If UCF continues to struggle like it did against Jacksonville State, and Texas Tech is able to perform somewhere close to its potential, this game should be lopsided. But we’ll see what actually happens.