After leading the Cardinals going into the 3rd quarter, the Knights fell flat offensively, with Louisville redshirt senior quarterback Malik Cunningham leading a comeback 20-14 victory over UCF at home Friday night.
It was a wet and rainy night for UCF as they hosted ACC rival, Louisville Cardinals at home in FBC Mortgage for the second game of the 2022 campaign.
UCF got off to their trademark fast start scoring touchdowns on two of its first possessions, jumping out to an early 14-7 lead when fifth year Senior Isaiah Bowser punched in a 3-yard touchdown 11:31 mark of the second quarter.
While it felt like the momentum was on the Knights’ side once again at home to seal the victory, it proved to be the last score of the game as the Cardinals (1-1) outscored UCF 13-0 in the second half, when the strong play of Cunnigham who threw for 195 yards and rushed for 121 and a touchdown handed the Knights their first loss of the season.
The Knights had a chance to take the lead late in the fourth quarter when Senior quarterback John Rhys Plumlee led UCF to the endzone to only be intercepted by Louisville CB Jarvis Brownlee on fourth-and-goal from the 5-yard line which sealed the team’s fate.
In his second game for the Knights, Plumlee went 16-for-34 throwing the ball for 131 yards and rushed for 83 yards but has handled four sacks throughout the night.
UCF head coach Gus Malzahn said he expects his team to fight back for the rest of the season despite the pain of losing at home for the first time since November of 2020.
“It’s not the end of the world as far as our season is concerned,” Malzahn said. “But it feels like crap right now.”
One of the sole offensive highlights of the night for UCF was Bowsers ability to score, where he finished with two rushing touchdowns of 51 yards.
Malzahn said he believes the key to success in the remainder of the season will be getting the ball in the hands of its running back more often.
“I mean look Bowsers an NFL running back,” Malzahn said “Johnny Richardson is very dynamic too, so we need to keep finding ways to get them the ball more often to find success.”
The Knights had two touchdowns called back after holding calls which turned out to be a theme of the night for UCF as the team was penalized 11 times for 111 yards.
That’s on me, it’s unacceptable,” Malzahn said. “We’re an undiscipline football team. I’ve got to do a better job obviously and that’s unacceptable. We have to correct that.”
With the loss the Knights fell to 1-1 overall for the season.
UCF will look to rebound next Saturday as the Knights head south to Boca Raton to take on the FAU Owls at 7:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the CBS Sports Network.
