UCF’s bye week arrives with the Knights in exactly the kind of spot that begs for it.
After a bruising stretch that included back-to-back road losses to ranked opponents, the Knights are 3-3 overall and 1-2 in the Big 12, and the injury list has only made the grind tougher. Five starters have already missed multiple games: quarterback Alonza Barnett III, wide receiver Duane Thomas Jr., offensive linemen Owen Spell and Jacob Maiava, and linebacker Lewis Carter.
“The first thing we need to do is get healthy,” coach Scott Frost said after UCF’s 42-28 loss at No. 18 Oklahoma State on Saturday. “It’s not even just the hurt guys; it’s the other guys that we’ve been leaning on that have been playing more reps.”
That has been the reality of UCF’s season lately. Tackett Curtis said the break should help a roster that has been taking hits all over.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that are dinged up, and having a whole week for those guys to kind of heal up and be ready to go is going to help a lot,” he said.
The Knights started the year with a 73-6 rout of Bethune-Cookman, then ran into a tougher test at Pittsburgh and lost 12-7 on Sept. 12.
They followed that by splitting their next four games: wins over Georgia State, 44-30, and TCU, 21-13, plus losses at then-No. 20 Houston, 27-17, and against Oklahoma State.
“I knew we had a tough stretch to begin the season and we did,” Frost said. “Some of those teams are playing even better than I maybe even expected, but we’ve got six games left, a whole half of a season left and being fresh and ready for those gives us the best chance.”
UCF has now opened 3-3 for the fourth straight season, and the second half hasn’t gone well in those previous years. The Knights were a combined 6-13 after the midpoint in those seasons.
There have been offensive chances left on the table, too. Frost pointed to the Pitt and Houston games in particular.
“We’ve had some plays that we missed on offense,” he said. “We’ve got to cash in on them.
Getting our guys healthy will help. I still think this team can finish the season really strong.”
With Barnett sidelined by a significant hamstring injury suffered against Pittsburgh, Keyone Jenkins has taken over and given UCF steady play. The redshirt senior is 2-2 as a starter, has completed nearly 70% of his passes, and has thrown for 764 yards with seven touchdowns and three interceptions.
There is no timetable for Barnett’s return.
Curtis said getting some of those missing pieces back would make a real difference, especially on defense.
“We have some players that make a big impact that are out right now, especially Lewis Carter being from the linebacker room,” said Curtis, who leads the team with 39 tackles. “He does a great job and having somebody like him on the field really helps us out a lot.”
The schedule after the bye is loaded. UCF returns to host No.
8 BYU on Oct. 24, then Baylor on Oct. 30.
After that comes a road trip to Kansas on Nov. 7, back-to-back home games against Arizona State on Nov. 14 and Iowa State on Nov. 20, and a regular-season finale at Colorado on Nov. 28.
The combined record of those remaining opponents is 19-12, and ESPN Analytics only favors UCF in three of those games: against Arizona State, Iowa State and Colorado.
Still, Frost said the priority now is not squeezing more out of a battered roster during the break. It’s the opposite.
“We’ll gain more on the field by having a fresh team in the second half than we will by grinding them out over the bye week,” he said. “I was in the NFL the one year and when they get a bye week, they say ‘See you in a week,’ and the guys come back ready to go. We’re not going to do that, but the priority for us is making sure we’re fresh, recovered and healthy.”
Jenkins feels the timing works for him, too.
“I’m a little banged up, so I need to get my body back,” Jenkins said. “But other than that, I want to get in the film room with my guys and find out what we can do better. I’ll probably also get in some work with the wide receivers on some timing and those deep balls.”
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