ORLANDO (UCFKnights.com) – The No. 14/15 UCF football team battled to a 31-24 road victory at SMU Saturday night in Dallas, improving to 8-0 for the first time in school history. The Knights have scored 30 or more points in all of their games in 2017.
Here's Why We Won
The KZ-Tre'Quan connection was on fire
Our star quarterback and our star wide receiver were locked in, leading us to a season high 615 yards of total offense in the victory. McKenzie Milton found Tre'Quan Smith seven times for 141 yards on the night. The seven catches for Smith were a season high.
Milton finished with a career high 412 passing yards with one touchdown through the air and one on the ground. The sophomore's passing yardage total was the seventh most in a game in UCF history.
Our defense came up big with a timely turnover
With the game tied 7-7 at the start of the second quarter, SMU drove from its own 43-yard line to the UCF 10-yard line looking to regain the lead.
That's when the safety duo of Tre Neal and Kyle Gibson stepped up to get the Knights back on track. Neal laid a hit on SMU's Ke'Mon Freeman at the one-yard line to jar the ball loose and Gibson wasted little time jumping on it. The resulting touchback gave UCF the ball at their own 20.
The Knights offense said thank you and three plays later was in the end zone to put UCF in front for the first time, at 14-17. UCF never trailed again in the game.
Our offense made big plays to put us in front
Milton led the offense to victory thanks to 10 plays of 20 or more yards. That may not sound that impressive for our high powered attack, but coming into Saturday's game we had been averaging just 6.8 "big plays" per game on offense.
Milton's 80-yard strike to Gabriel Davis early in the second quarter was the longest completion of the quarterback's young career. It was also the longest reception for Davis. The freshman now has two touchdown catches on the season.
AK answered the call
Adrian Killins Jr. has been a superstar in the backfield all season long and on Saturday he stepped up yet again. The speedster rushed for a career high 145 yards on just 14 carries for an average of 10.4 yards per rush, scoring twice in the victory.
It marked the second time in the last three games that he found the end zone twice. His first against the Mustangs put UCF up 21-14 before the break, and his second was immediately after the Mustangs got back within four point early in the third quarter.
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