Will UCF give up or stand up?
Bianchi: 50-49 loss means team must show if it is resilient.
Nowwe will see. Nowwe will see howtough and tenacious thisUCF team is.
Nowwe will see howresilient this team is.
Nowwe will see if they stand up … or give up.
WhenUCF kickerDaniel Obarski pulled a last-second 40-yard field goal wide left to giveMemphis a hair-pulling, nail-biting 50-49 victory, most of the Knights’ hopes and dreams for the 2020 season disappeared aswell.
The team’s preseason goals are essentially gone now.
For all intents and purpose,
the conference championship is gone.
A spot in aNew Year’s Six bowl game is gone.
The13-game win streak againstMemphis is gone.
Asked what he can do to keep his team motivatedmoving forward, UCF coach JoshHeupel replied, “We have a bunch of competitors in that locker room, and as a competitor there’s a pride factor in everything you do every day. There is certainly a pride factor on game day.
“We willmove on, get ready for the next one. There are lessons to be learned. This moment can either define whowe are moving forward orwe can define this moment moving forward.”
Still, everybody associated withUCF, fromthe players to the coaches to the administrators to the fans to Knightro the mascot, have to bewondering howthis could possibly happen?
HowdoesUCF have nearly 800 yards of offense (798 to be exact) and lose?
HowdoesUCF quarterback Dillon Gabriel throwfor a school record 601 yards and five touchdowns without an interception … and lose?
HowdoesUCF have three receivers with more than170 yards in receptions … and lose?
HowdoesUCF have touchdown passes of 85 yards toMarlonWilliams, 43 yards to Jalen Robinson and 93 yards to Ryan O’Keefe … and lose?
Obviously, itwas becauseUCF’s defensewas, well, defenseless.
Actually, both defenseswere defenseless, with the two teams combining for a conference-record1,501yards. And as exciting as this gamewas fromthe offensive standpoint, itwas a joke froma football standpoint. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: College football is turning into the Arena League.
Every time it looked as ifUCF’s offense had put the game away, Memphis came storming back behind sixth-year senior quarterback Brady White, who completed 34 of 50 passes for 486 yards and six touchdowns.
On fourth-and-3 onMemphis’s final possession, the Tigers had one last chance to try to keep their game-winning drive alive. White executed a perfect shovel to TajWashington, who took it 53 yards to theUCF 5-yard line to set up the gamewinning 4-yard TDpass. Therewas only 1 minute, 8 seconds left andMemphis had just claimed its first lead of the game.
UCF came up short on the ensuing drive.
And nowthe question is howwillUCF respond to two consecutive devastating losses— first to Tulsa and nowtoMemphis.
In thisweird, whacked-out, confusing, COVID-plagued season, it’s up to every team to stay motivated in anyway it can. AsHeupel said before the first game of the
season, teams must conjure up their own inspiration and motivation when playing in mostly empty stadiums in games that nobody knows are even going to be played on aweekly basis.
“If you’re juiceless, you’re useless,” Heupel said before the season.
But will the Knights still be able to squeeze some juice out of the rest of the season?
Whocould blame any college football player for having trouble getting motivated amid this lingering pandemic that just won’t seem to go away. Teams don’t even knowfromweek toweek if they’re going to be able to play, evidenced by the fact thatMemphiswent nearly a month between its first and second games and had an11-day gap without practicing because of positive COVID-19 tests in the program.
Just look at what happened in college football in recent days andweeks. Right up the road in Gainesville, the Gators had a COVID outbreak, including their coach DanMullen testing positive, and had this week’s game against LSUand nextweek’s game against Missouri postponed.
In Tallahassee, current head coach MikeNorvell and legendary former coach Bobby Bowden have both tested positive forCOVID. In Tuscaloosa, Nick Saban tested positive aswell.
Nowwe see what happens toUCF. Nowwe will see howtough and tenacious this team really is.
What’s it going to be, UCF Knights? Are you going to give up?
Or stand up?
This column first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on Twitter @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. onFM96.9 andAM740.