Arizona Wildcats on Wrong End of Most Surprising Outcome vs. UCF Knights
It feels like a century ago that the Arizona Wildcats defeated the Utah Utes on the road to officially kickstart their first season as a member of the Big 12.
After a disappointing performance in their previous game against the Kansas State Wildcats, Arizona put forth their most complete effort of the season. Some thought it was a sign of things to come, but it ended up being the high point of the campaign.
Since that point, it has been nothing but disappointment in Tuscon. The matchup against the Utes was back on September 28th; that was the last time the team won a game as they are currently riding a five-game losing streak.
Most of the games during that stretch haven’t even been competitive. The BYU Cougars, Colorado Buffaloes and UCF Knights all blew out the Wildcats by at least 22 points.
This past weekend on the road in Orlando, it feels as if the team has hit rock bottom.
With bowl eligibility in peril, two 3-5 teams faced off. Only one, the Knights, looked as if they had something to play for as Arizona looks like a team that has packed it in and is ready for the offseason to begin.
The result was a 56-12 thrashing. The SP+ projections had UCF winning the game by 6.5 points.
It wasn’t an outcome anyone saw coming. As shared by Bill Connelly of ESPN, it was the most surprising outcome of Week 10 in college football.
“I have hopped on and off of the UCF bandwagon about 17 times this year -- sometimes during the middle of games -- but the Knights' upside was on full display Saturday. Granted, Arizona appears to have just about packed it in, but with its third starting QB of the season (redshirt freshman Dylan Rizk), UCF gained 602 yards at 8.7 per play and, after a missed field goal on the first possession, scored touchdowns on the next seven. Absolute destruction,” the college football expert wrote.
If that is the kind of performance Brent Brennan is going to get from his guys in what was an important matchup, it is hard to think about what will happen over the final three weeks of the season.
The Wildcats need to win out just to become bowl-eligible. It will be an incredibly difficult task, as they are not only struggling but all three teams, the Houston Cougars, TCU Horned Frogs and Arizona State Sun Devils, are all .500 or better in the conference right now.
This is about as bad as things could have gone for a team that entered the season with legitimate Big 12 championship aspirations.
