At least a half-dozen times--if not many more--UCF felt like it would win its first road game of 2021 at Louisville:
--There were early leads of 7-0 and 14-7 Friday night.
--There were three times after halftime when the Knights fought back courageously from touchdown deficits with lengthy scoring drives to wrestle back momentum.
--There was a time early in the final period, after Louisville came up short on fourth down, when UCF had a chance to score go-ahead points from just past midfield with all that momentum seemingly on its side.
--Then there was the Tremon Morris-Brash interception in the final half-minute that left the visitors in prime position to put the winning points on the board.
The game was tied five times—and the Cardinals had every right to feel like they had the same number and sorts of opportunities to close out a victory.
And, yet, with UCF thinking another nail-biter was nearly in its grasp with less than a minute on the clock, it was Louisville that made the ultimate game-changing play of the evening.
Gus Malzahn's team lost its first game of the season by a 42-35 count—and the Knights' head coach declared it might well be a season-defining night.
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"We've got to physically get after these guys," Malzahn told his team before the game.
"Handle adversity and success like champions. This will be a different kind of adversity tonight playing on the road.
"This game is about us. We've got to improve from game two. It's a great opportunity for us, but it's not going to be easy.
"Let's get ready to roll."
The Knights did exactly what Malzahn had hoped to open the action. Tatum Bethune produced a three-yard loss when the Cards went for it on fourth and one from their own 44. Then UCF needed all of 13 seconds to take the lead on Dillon Gabriel's 41-yard strike to Ryan O'Keefe.
But, backed up near its own goal line, Louisville traveled 94 yards to tie the contest.
Gabriel had his own answer—an acrobatic one-handed end-zone grab by Jaylon Robinson from 15 yards made it 14-7 for the visitors.
Louisville's response? A tying 75-yard excursion of its own, with quarterback Malik Cunningham either throwing or running it himself on eight of 12 plays. Then the Cards took the lead in the last half-minute of the first half.
Gabriel completed 12 of 15 passes in the first two periods, but 65 rushing yards and 148 more through the air by Cunningham helped Louisville achieve a time-of-possession advantage of nearly nine minutes (the Cards ran 19 more plays in those opening 30 minutes).
This was familiar territory. Down 10 points to Boise State two weeks prior, this time the mid-point deficit was seven.
"We get the ball the second half. Here's how this thing is going to go down," said Malzahn. "We're going to score and take back control.
"Fight your butt off with everything within you, and we're going to win this game.
"We're closers," the UCF head coach told his players as they took the field to end intermission. "Show 'em how we close."
And then the Knights nearly did.
They leveled the score with a bit of trickery—as Gabriel tossed the ball backward to O'Keefe and then zipped into the flat and hauled in a 20-yard scoring throw from the UCF receiver.
It was 21-21.
Louisville again went ahead late on the third quarterback as Cunningham hit the 200-yard mark for passing yards.
Again UCF had the answer—gashing the Cards on three straight plays to end the third period (a 14-yard run by Johnny Richardson, a Gabriel connection to O'Keefe for 29 and another Richardson run for 21). When Gabriel found Brandon Johnson from three yards out on the second play of the final period, they tied it at 28.
At that point, the game had already featured a fourth-down TD pass by the Knights, two missed fourth downs by Louisville (one on a fake punt)—and the throwback pass that eventually landed in Gabriel's hands.
But the real fun was just beginning.
The home team stretched the lead to seven for a third time on a 45-yard scoring toss from wide receiver Braden Smith—on some razzle-dazzle by the Cards.
UCF forced a punt and took over with 3:40 to go—and Richardson promptly produced runs of 23 and 19 yards. Gabriel finished it himself from the six, as the clock read 1:21—and it was tied yet again.
On Louisville's sixth straight pass attempt, a tipped throw ended in the hands of UCF's Tremon Morris-Brash, setting the Knights up on the Cards' 41 with 25 seconds left to potentially find the game-winning points.
Instead it went the other way in stunning fashion. Another tipped pass, a second interception on consecutive plays—only this went 66 yards the wrong direction.
With an unlucky 13 seconds to go, the home team had somehow posted an ever-so-unlikely 42-35 advantage.
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Maybe the football gods have decided to challenge the Knights on a week-to-week basis in 2021.
--Both the Boise State (two hours and 45 minutes later than planned) and Bethune-Cookman (a 50-minute delay) games started late due to lightning.
--On Thursday the Knights were delayed getting to Louisville when the plane headed to Orlando to transport UCF encountered issues and an additional piece of equipment had to fly into Sanford to ferry Malzahn's team.
--Then, just as Malzahn was preparing to speak to his team for the final few minutes at the team hotel Friday, fire alarm sirens went off and temporarily postponed that address.
When it was all over, Malzahn had little choice except to put the events of the evening into perspective:
"I really feel like this is going to be a defining moment of this year's team," he said. "I'll tell you this, you fought your guts out.
"We made mistakes and we had a lot of guys go down—and we still had a chance to win at the end.
"This will be a defining moment, I really believe. We've got to come together because we're all in this thing together."
UCF came out strong in the second half—possessing the football for nearly 10 and a half minutes of the third quarter. In that period alone the Knights rolled for 161 net yards, while limiting the Louisville run game to 20 yards.
Yet it wasn't enough on a warm night when the two teams combined for seven TD drives of 65 or more yards.
"I'm proud of your fight," said Malzahn.
"We're going to have our chin up high--and then we're going back to the drawing board."