ORLANDO - It was another balanced performance for the Knights, as the UCF football team led from wire-to-wire in a 38-13 home victory over visiting Temple Saturday night at the Bounce House.
The defense was impressive all night, allowing just three points prior to the fourth quarter with a total of 290 yards of offense and turned Temple over three times in the victory.
Junior linebacker Eriq Gilyard might have been the best of the bunch, finishing the night by matching a career high of 12 tackles and setting a new career high with 3.0 tackles for loss.
He was the one that got everything start on the Owls' (1-5, 1-5) first possession, getting a strip sack, ripping the ball out of Re-al Mitchell's hands, and getting the UCF offense onto the field quickly.
The Knights (5-2, 4-2) turned that into points when Greg McCrae found the end zone for the first of two times on the night.
On Temple's next possession it was Tatum Bethune making it happen for the defense, snagging his first career interception. The Knights turned the takeaway into points again as Otis Anderson ran in for a score to put the Knights up 14-0 early.
McCrae scored again later in the first to put the Knights up 21-0 and UCF never looked back. The Knights led 21-3 at halftime and built the advantage to 38-3, before allowing the Owls to score 10 late points in the fourth quarter.
The Knights will play the second of two straight home games next weekend, hosting seventh ranked Cincinnati at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN.
From Coach Heupel
"I thought we were gap-sound, I thought we were physical, we controlled the line of scrimmage, I thought we tackled well in space early in the ball game, I thought our linebackers did a tremendous job of having their eyes on their keys and fitting the gaps. You had all three levels playing together and then we were able to put pressure on the quarterback early in the ball game as well."
From Eriq Gilyard
"It's remarkable because you have guys who didn't play a lot of snaps in the beginning of the season, to now they're getting almost every snap in the game and there's no drop off. They're playing at a high level, making a lot of plays. It goes to show what type of players they are and how well we prepared for the season."
Notes
• The Knights improved to 27-6 with Josh Heupel at the helm.
• UCF defeated Temple for the fourth straight time and improved to 6-2 all-time against the Owls. UCF now holds a 3-1 advantage over Temple in games played in Orlando.
• The Knights scored on the ground and through the air, their 46th straight game doing so, a streak that leads the nation.
• UCF scored 30 or more points for the 43rd time in its last 45 games and scored 24 or more points for the 46th consecutive game, a streak that leads the nation.
• Dillon Gabriel threw a touchdown pass for the 20th straight game, the fourth longest streak in UCF history. It is the longest streak for a Knight to start his career.
• Greg McCrae scored twice on the ground to increase his career total to 26 rushing touchdowns, which is fifth all-time, passing Adrian Killins (25) and Daunte Culpepper (24).
• Marlon Williams and Jaylon Robinson both went over 100 yards in the game, the fourth time the duo has done so in a single game, which is a program record.
• The Knights came in ranked first in the nation with nine fumble recoveries and got their 10th on Saturday.
• UCF was also second in the nation in takeaways with 16 prior to this weekend and got three more against the Owls.
• Eriq Gilyard got a forced fumble and fumble recovery in the first quarter, his third forced fumble of the season and second recovery.
• Redshirt sophomore punter Andrew Osteen punted five times for 231 yards, an average of 46.2 yards per punt and had a long of 57.
