After the Deion debacle, UCF is even more threatening to Florida football

ORLANDO – The answer to Florida’s immediate football worries has become clear. Somehow, get Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter into Gator uniforms by this Saturday.

They wore Colorado uniforms over the weekend and ruined UCF’s big coming out party. The same UCF that loomed as a uniquely existential threat to Florida football and Billy Napier.

“We didn’t get it done,” coach Gus Malzahn said. “We got outcoached and outplayed.”

Outcoached by Coach Prime? Outplayed by a 13½-point underdog?

“It hurts,” quarterback K.J. Jefferson said.

The strange thing is that by losing 48-21 to Deion U., the Knights could be even more of a threat to Florida’s ego and Napier’s job security.

It would have been bad enough to lose to an unbeaten and ranked UCF team. Imagine if the freshly humiliated Knights stick it to the Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium?

“We’re going to beat them good,” Jackson Morse said.

Of course, he said that about five hours before the Colorado kickoff. Morse was one of millions of UCF fans who showed up for Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff show on campus.

There weren’t really millions. It just felt that way, and they weren’t just thinking about the Buffaloes.

Beating Colorado with Fox Nation watching would have heralded UCF’s arrival as Big 12 power and playoff contender. That would have been nice, but nothing gets the black-and-gold blood flowing like beating the Gators.

“I have friends who are Florida alumni that I would love to be able to mock,” Jack Dolan said.

He and his wife, Pat, have been Knights fans for 30-plus years. They remember when Gator fans considered UCF an instate version of Tennessee Tech.

A lot still do, despite the fact UCF won the 2017 national championship. Sort of. The Knights have a banner at FBC Mortgage Stadium to prove it.

Nobody in Gainesville recognizes that…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/deion-debacle-ucf-even-more-080536839.html

Author : The Gainesville Sun

Publish date : 2024-09-30 08:05:36

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