ANN ARBOR, Mich. – UCF was unable to pull off the unthinkable at The Big House, falling decisively to Michigan, 51-14.
“Our team played hard today, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. The passion, the effort, the physicality was there. Sometimes our execution isn’t where it needs to be. The team we played executed really well. We need to catch up with that and make sure that we can be as physical and play as hard as we did today and execute at that pace,” Frost analyzed immediately after the loss.
The Knights were outclassed in almost every facet of the game, with the exception standing for explosive gains by the ground attack. UCF amassed 275 yards on the ground, bolstered by four long runs over 25 yards; including two touchdown runs by Dontravious Wilson of 26 yards and Adrian Killins of 87 yards.
“Jim Harbaugh teams are physical, that’s what they’re known for. We came in here and rushed for six yards a carry against them. I think they had 2.9 – I’m looking at it – 2.9 yards rushing. That tells me our guys are playing hard and fighting,” Frost said.
Killins’ 87 yard gallop tied the UCF record for longest touchdown run from scrimmage, matching Coach Kevin Smith’s mark.
“We ran that play a lot in practice,” excitedly confirmed Killins. “It executes well in practice all the time, I have to read my blockers and read my defenders, know the safety rotation and once I get into the secondary I know I can’t be touched, I know I can’t be caught.”
“It’s all in the coaches’ hands. Whenever they put me in the game, whenever they call my number I go and I execute, I do my job and at the end of the day I’m here to help the offense execute and win games.”
Nick Patti was forced into action in the second quarter on the heels of what looked like an extremely volatile injury to Justin Holman as he finished off a 35 yard scramble, violently falling to the turf while attempting to either slide or get out of bounds.
The quarterback would not return to the game, but Coach Frost insisted that even if the extent of the injury was well known – which he refused to comment on – Justin may not have returned in the second half of the shellacking anyway.
“We have a policy, we won’t talk about injuries. He wasn’t able to come back in the second half and I’m not sure we would have played him even if he would have [been], just to make sure he’s healthy going forward,” revealed the first time head coach.
Holman potentially not returning even if healthy is not too much of a surprise when you look at the passing numbers. Both he and Patti struggled mightily to find an open receiver, ending the day 3-for-11 each for a combined 56 yards passing.
“Honestly the biggest thing is their defense,” Coach Frost said of the passing struggles. “Coach Brown is a whale of a coordinator, he was at Boston College last year; they don’t have the best talent in the country but they had the number one scoring defense in the country. His deal is to take away anything easy.”
“Their DBs were up, pressing our guys the whole game. They take away all easy throws. So the completions, you have to earn it. You have to earn it by protecting for a long time, you have to earn it by beating the DBs, either in man or in tight zone and you’ve got to throw it to them. Our execution in the passing game needs to be better but that’s their strategy; to take away anything easy.”
It seemed all game that the Wolverines’ pressure was just too much to handle for an offensive line transitioning to a new system. If you exclude the two long touchdown plays and quarterback carries, the backs managed a mere three yards per carry. Between time split by Justin Holman and Nick Patti under center, they were both sacked three times, but played the whole game under extreme duress.
Skewed numbers will highlight the 275 running yards as a sign of good things to come, but most of the significant quarterback keepers were not designed plays. Rather, UCF was able to take advantage of out-of-position defenders on broken passing plays.
“I think in today’s game, the quarterback, you have to account for him in some types of coverages and stuff and you can kind of lose the quarterback,” insisted Nick Patti. “That happened a few times today for Justin and myself, that’s something that [us] mobile guys have to take advantage of. You want to be sound and you want to work within the offense, but when those kind of plays present themselves it’s good to take advantage of. We both did today on plays where we made big gains. When they’re in man coverage and they turn their backs it’s good to gash them like that.”
To say the Knights struggled to contain the Michigan offense would be putting it lightly. The Wolverines scored on 9 of their 13 possessions, punting only three times and turning the ball over once on downs over the course of a dominant 34:25 time of possession.
UCF, on the other hand, scored on two possessions, fumbled the ball away twice, missed two field goals, was forced to punt four times and turned the ball over three times on downs.
It can be called a moral victory in a few senses of the term. The players were more upbeat after the game than in any loss last year, seemingly more willing to take their lumps and really learn from them. This year, everyone hopes, defeats like this will not spark team-wide dissent.
“There was no quit in the guys. One of the big things for them now is I think things crumbled last year when things went wrong and guys split up. I want to see us come closer together. These types of challenges should bring us closer together,” said Frost.
These Knights have a long way to go before they can compete at this level. For the time being though, Coach Frost sees a team that is falling into place just as he’d hoped.
“We’re moving in one direction,” said Patti. “A game like this doesn’t hurt that, I think what we can do is take everything we can from this and only help that cause.”
