QB injury was UCF’s downfall
Mike Bianchi on what might have been a historic season.
“McKenzie Milton threw for six touchdown passes and ran for another as the UCF Knights methodically dismantled USF 49-10 on Black Friday for its 38th consecutive victory to move the past the Yale team of ’89 — that’s 1889 — for the third-longest win streak in major college football history.
With the victory, the Knights continue their assault on the record books and are the talk of college football. They are ranked No. 5 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings and even their former national media critics — Paul Finebaum and Kirk Herbstreit — are now on their bandwagon and lobbying for the committee to finally open the doors and let them in the semifinals.
Milton, in his senior season as the magical quarterback of the Knights, leads the nation in passing, is the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman Trophy and NFL scouts have fallen in love with UCF’s magnificient offensive maestro. …”
Sadly, the three paragraphs you just read, are what I should have been writing Friday night after the UCF-USF game.
In fact, I’m convinced that’s what I would have been writing if not for that somber, surreal day in Tampa a year ago when McKenzie Milton’s went down with that devastating knee injury; an injury that didn’t just change the path of KZ’s life; it altered the trajectory of UCF’s football future.
“Honestly, I don’t go back and think about what might have happened because I know it wasn’t meant to be,” KZ says a year after the gruesome injury against USF.
Milton is still painstakingly trying to come back from the horrific dislocated knee that nearly cost him his leg, and there’s no question the UCF football program is still trying to recover as well.
Even though new quarterback Dillon Gabriel, a Milton protégé who attended the same Hawaiian high school as KZ, has played exceptionally well for a true freshman; it goes without saying that Milton would be playing at another level as a senior.
Everybody on the team will tell you that Milton was just starting to master first-year coach Josh Heupel’s offense when he went down a year ago. With Milton orchestrating the offense and being the unquestioned senior leader of the team, there’s little doubt in my mind that the Knights would not only have beaten LSU in the Fiesta Bowl last season, they would have blown out everybody on their schedule this season.
“As a competitor, I would have loved to have played in the Fiesta Bowl last year against a big-time opponent like LSU and I would have loved to have played out my senior season this year,” KZ says. “But even if I would have played, there’s no guarantee the streak would still be alive and we would have won those games.”
He’s right. It wouldn’t have been a certainty, but it would have been a very strong possibility.
During the Fiesta Bowl loss to LSU, UCF’s offense accounted for only 250 yards and backup quarterback Darriel Mack Jr. completed only one pass for five yards in the entire second half. Despite Mack’s poor performance (11-of-30 passing for only 97 yards), it was still a one-possession game and the Knights only lost by eight points — 40-32.
If Milton had been playing, he would have shredded LSU’s depleted secondary. And, likewise, he would have been the difference in UCF’s three defeats by a total of seven points this season.
Raise your hand if you believe Pitt would have beaten UCF 35-34 on a last-second two-point conversion if Milton had been playing earlier this season.
As for the 27-24 loss to Cincinnati, Gabriel was baffled by some of the Bearcats’ sophisticated coverages and threw three interceptions. Do you really think that would have happened with KZ on the field?
And let’s be honest, shall we? There’s not a chance Milton, the team leader, would have allowed the Knights to go on the road a couple of weeks ago and lose 34-31 to a 2-7 Tulsa team. No way, no how.
If Milton stays healthy, it’s my belief UCF would be riding an historic 37-game win streak, changing the national narrative on how Group of 5 teams are perceived and knocking on the door of the College Football Playoff semifinals.
Not only knocking on the door, but likely even knocking the damn thing down. Think about it: Would the playoff committee really have the gall and guts to leave out a team that has gone undefeated for THREE straight seasons and put together the third-longest winning streak in the history of the game?
Especially a team such as the Knights, who would have received extra credit for beating LSU (now ranked No. 2) in the Fiesta Bowl last season and also for competing in a much improved American Athletic Conference that has had multiple teams ranked this season. And let’s also remember this: With a healthy Milton in the lineup and a team coming off a second straight unbeaten season, UCF would have likely started this season ranked among the nation’s top 10.
Even Finebaum, the controversial and influential ESPN commentator who has been a vocal critic of UCF in the past, told me earlier this week that, yes, he would actually be on the Danny White bandwagon if the Knights were riding a 37-game winning streak with Milton at the helm.
“I would have been all in [on UCF] and I believe the playoff committee would have grudgingly gravitated that way as well,”
Finebaum said. “The sustainability [of the UCF program] and the improved schedule would have helped. Also, this year there is no clear No. 4 team and that may have shifted people in the direction of UCF.”
Of course, everything changed that day in Tampa a year ago. It was just a typical third-and-7 option early in the second quarter; a play in which Milton decided to keep it instead of handing off.
There’s no sense in reliving what happened next because KZ
— during all the tears and fears; the surgeries and skin grafts; the muscle atrophy and nerve regeneration; the endless rehab and creeping doubts; the physical pain and mental anguish; and, thankfully, the devoted faith and heartfelt prayers — has relived it himself a million times.
“I catch myself thinking back sometimes and wondering if there’s anything I could have done differently on that play,” KZ says.
If only there was a way we could go back in time.
If only he had — just this once — made the wrong read and handed the ball of for a loss of 2.
Instead, he kept it for a gain of five.
Isn’t it astounding how one routine play, one amazing player and one awful injury might have changed the course of not only UCF history, but college football history?