(Photo by Adrian J. Hernandez / New Day Review)
ORLANDO, Fla. – Week 9 was supposed to be a bye week for the No. 18 UCF Knights. Instead, an early-season interruption by Hurricane Irma forced the Knights to cancel two games and reschedule another. With just 10 games on the schedule, the Knights were looking for at least one more game and found it in FCS Austin Peay State University.
And while the Governors are winless against both their FBS opponents this season (Cincinnati Bearcats, Miami RedHawks), the Knights aren’t treating this week any differently.
“I mean, we just gotta go out there and prepare,” senior guard Chavis Dickey said after practice on Oct. 21. “We gotta prepare for this week like any other week. We gotta watch film. We gotta go out there attack practice every day and just stay focused and don’t let nobody from the outside tell us, like, ‘Oh, this game is gonna be easy,’ and this and that. We just gotta go prepare.”
This season, UCF has gotten out to its best start in program history. The team is 6-0 for the first time ever, and the Knights’ No. 18 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 is the highest UCF has been ranked since the 2013 season.
Now, UCF is in a unique position. The Knights are already are deep into their conference schedule, staying undefeated through four games, and are coming off their most tightly contested game of the season, a 31-21 road win over the Navy Midshipmen.
The Knights will have to quickly shift gears and play a non-conference game, something they haven’t done since a Week 4 win over the University of Maryland. And with UCF originally planning for a bye week this week, wherein the team would’ve eased practices and rested players, it was possible the Knights would not play starters extensively against Austin Peay.
But for second-year UCF head coach Scott Frost, that’s not the plan.
“We’re gonna approach this game just like any other game. We’re going out to win it,” Frost said at the team’s game-week presser on Oct. 22. “We’re going out to give them our best shot. We’ll see how the game goes. Any game where you can get a bunch of guys to play is a good game. But we’re not gonna go in with that mindset. We’re going in with the mindset that we need to do what it takes to win. We need to play our best to win. And we’ll figure the rest out if and when we get to a different situation.”
Said running-back Otis Anderson on team’s approach to Austin Peay after practice on Oct. 22: “[Coaches] just really told us to prepare like we were about to play a conference game. So we have to take it as serious we have been taking all the other games and just prepare as hard.”
The Knights are also presented with another unique opportunity, as UCF could record its first shutout this season. In two games against FBS opponents Cincinnati and Miami, Austin Peay scored just 24 points. UCF has the 16th-best defense in the country, holding teams to just 17.5 points per game.
But for redshirt senior linebacker Chequan Burkett, he sees Austin Peay as just another college-football team with other college-football players.
“Any shutout be a confidence in the defense. You know, that’s a big step as a defense,” Burkett said after practice on Oct. 22. “They have scholarship athletes just as we do, so getting a shutout on them would be big, and it would definitely give us a platform to go from going into [Southern Methodist University] week.”
UCF and Austin Peay square off on Saturday at 5 p.m. at Spectrum Stadium. The game will be broadcast on ESPN3.
For more on the Knights, as they prepare for the Governors, follow Ryan Weiss on Twitter at @NDR_RyanWeiss.
