The Knights (5-2, 3-0) will play their second Conference USA road game of the season when UCF travels to Huntington, West Virginia to take on the Marshall Thundering Herd (3-4, 2-1) Saturday night at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.

UCF continues to lead the Conference USA East Division by one game over the ECU Pirates and Marshall sits in third place the division.

The Knights are 7-3 all-time against the Thundering Herd and are 3-2 when the game is played in Huntington. Last time the Knights traveled to the Mountain State UCF defeated Marshall in a lighting-delayed contest 35-14.

"Every time we go to Marshall it's a tough environment to play in, but we have to go there as a team and a family and stick together," senior defensive back Lyle Dankenbring said. "That's how you get through things like that."

A win would put the Knights at 4-0 in the conference and would keep them in a position to control their own destiny and a potential berth in the Conference USA Championship game.

"We know that our goal is to win the conference championship and we need to win this game to do that," Dankenbring said. "It's a big game for us. We try and treat every game as a big game, but this is a big game."

"Any conference game is a big game, but especially conference games in the east division," senior offensive lineman Phil Smith said. "You have to win those games in order to go to the conference championship."

The Thundering Herd comes into this contest with the top ranked offense in the conference scoring 43.1 points per game and averaging 568.4 yards per game.

"We need to be able to play with their tempo," Dankenbring said. "They're a fast tempo team. Probably the fastest we've played against all year. We just need 11 guys running to the football. Play smart and play fast. That's how we do it."

Thundering Herd sophomore quarterback Rakeem Cato is in his second season as a start for Marshall. The UCF defense will have the challenge of defending his 379.7 passing yards per game and Knights will do all they can to put pressure on the young gunslinger from Miami.

"We need to get our hands on guys at the line of scrimmage," Dankenbring said. "If we do that we give the pass rush time to get to the quarterback. Pass rush and coverage go hand in hand. People say the best coverage is a good pass rush so we need to get our hands on people and slow them down."