It seemed only appropriate that UCF wore its space uniforms on Saturday.
After all — with apologies to the late, great Neil Armstrong — this was not just one small step for UCF, this was one giant leap for UCF fankind.
UCF 45, No. 15 Oklahoma State 3.
Can you believe it?
Can you conceive it?
What an incredible performance.
What an amazing atmosphere.
What a defense-swarming, field-storming victory.
And what an inexplicable, unexplainable turnaround to a tumultuous, topsy-turvy season.
“We seized the moment,” UCF coach Gus Malzahn said. “We made a statement to college football that this team can play.”
Did they ever.
The Knights didn’t just beat the 15th-ranked team in the country; they beat up the 15th-ranked team in the country in every facet and phase of the game.
My God, did you see it RJ Harvey’s 92-yard run at the outset of the second half that gave UCF a 31-3 lead? Oklahoma State’s Ollie Gordon II came into the game as the nation’s leading rusher, but Harvey was the best back on the field Saturday, running for 206 yards and three touchdowns and becoming the first UCF player since the great Kevin Smith in 2007 to run for 100 yards or more in five straight games.
And did you see UCF receiver Kobe Hudson, nursing a strained hammy, outrun everybody on his 75-yard touchdown catch that gave UCF a 24-0 halftime lead? Hudson caught just three passes, but they were all for touchdowns.
And did you see UCF’s much-maligned defense hold Gordon, who was averaging 186 rushing yards per game over the last six weeks, to just 25 yards on 12 carries? Moreover, UCF had four takeaways, including three from Demari Henderson, who had two picks and a fumble recovery.
And did you see the game-winning grin on Malzahn’s face after he celebrated his 100th career victory with one of the most satisfying wins of his career? Yes, Malzahn has coached in national-championship games, but he’s never had to coach a team out of a five-game losing streak as he’s done this season.
So much for the consensus opinion two weeks ago when most of us thought UCF’s season was going down the toilet. The Knights were 0-5 in the Big 12 and well on their way to a 3-9 season. Now look at ’em: They’re 5-5 and need just one more win to become bowl eligible in their first Big 12 season.
It’s a good thing UCF’s players and coaches weren’t thinking like the rest of us two weeks ago. They kept believing and telling us that, despite their record, they were still a team to be reckoned with. When I asked Malzahn how he was handling the losing after a 41-28 loss to West Virginia dropped the Knights to 3-5 overall, 0-5 in the Big 12, you could just hear the pain and angst in the coach’s voice.
“I’m not dealing with it very well at all,” said Malzahn, who has never had a losing season in 11 previous seasons as a college head coach. “I’m not happy about it and nobody should be. This is something that’s new to me, but the bottom line is we have to change it.”
And so they did. They went on the road last week and eked out a tough victory over Cincinnati and then they came home Saturday for the “Space Game” and blasted off into a brave new world. UCF has not beaten a regular-season opponent ranked this high since they defeated No. 8 Louisville on the way to their historic Fiesta Bowl season 10 years ago.
Give Malzahn and his team credit for keeping the faith during a losing streak that included the historic meltdown against Baylor and ended with a four-turnover performance against West Virginia.
“This is a real conference and we went through some growing pains,” Malzahn said. “We challenged our guys. We turned up the heat, and they responded.”
Or maybe, too, they have figured out what it takes to win in a Power 5 league. Maybe they just needed to get used to the competition against programs with more money, bigger budgets, better facilities — and deeper, more-talented rosters. Don’t forget, TCU was 11-2, 12-1, 13-0 and 11-2 in the four seasons prior to entering the Big 12 a decade ago but then finished 7-6 and 4-8 in its first two seasons in the league. The Big 12 is not the best conference in college football, but Malzahn says it might be the deepest.
Let’s also remember that starting quarterback John Rhys Plumlee missed the better part of four games when he suffered a knee injury at the end of the second game of the year against Boise State. Plumlee, even though he is still wearing a knee brace, is starting to look more and more like his old self. He not only threw for 299 yards and three TDs against Oklahoma State, he ran for 74 yards.
“The team you saw out there tonight, that’s the team we’ve been wanting to show all season,” Plumlee said. “That’s who we are as a team and we got to put it on display today.”
He continued with a smile splashed across his face:
“It was on the bucket list for me to play in a game where the fans stormed the field, so I can check that one off.”
Actually, it wasn’t so much of a field-storming as a field-strolling. Fans chanted “U-C-F! U-C-F!” and waited patiently while stadium security guards opened the gates. The fans then rushed onto the field in a polite, orderly fashion and even left the goalposts intact.
Unlike the Baylor collapse in which a large number of UCF fans left the game with the Knights holding a 35-7 lead midway through the third quarter, it was refreshing to see so many fans still in the stadium at the end of Saturday’s rain-soaked blowout.
“Maybe there’s something to this Space Game,” a grinning Malzahn said of UCF’s 7-0 record in games commemorating the school’s historic ties to the U.S. space industry.
Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.
The UCF Knights showed on Saturday that they are reaching for the stars.
This was not just one small step for UCF, this was one giant leap for UCF fankind
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen
