Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell did it, and now it’s up to UCF’s Gus Malzahn to do it, too.
Malzahn must not only recover from the most lopsided beating of his coaching career; he must use Saturday’s 56-21 methodical dismantling at the hands of No. 3-ranked Cincinnati as motivation and inspiration to rebuild the bruised, battered, beleaguered Knights back into a national power. And he vows to do just that.
“We got our butts kicked,” Malzahn said afterward. “… We’ll look back on this day. We’re building this thing for the future, and we will remember this day. There are a lot better days ahead; I’ll tell you that.”
That’s essentially what Fickell said in his first season at Cincinnati after his Bearcats were destroyed 51-23 by Scott Frost’s powerhouse UCF team and went on to stumble to a 4-8 record. Fickell, seeing how far his program had to go to compete with the likes of UCF, relentlessly hit the recruiting trail and has never looked back. Since that inaugural season, the Bearcats have gone 11-2, 11-3, 9-1 and now 6-0 with a legitimate chance to win the national championship.
This is the exact same path Malzahn must follow. I’m not saying UCF is going to go 4-8 this season, but they could; they definitely could. Let’s face it, the Knights (3-3) have lost three of their four games since superstar quarterback Dillon Gabriel’s probable season-ending injury with the only victory coming on a final-seconds touchdown last week to barely beat East Carolina.
Saturday’s flogging by Cincinnati started with a UCF three-and-out and a partially blocked 8-yard punt — and it only got worse from there. The Bearcats led 35-0 at one point in the first half, their running back Jerome Ford ran for a career-high 189 yards and 4 touchdowns and their defense held UCF freshman QB Mikey Keene to 141 passing yards and recorded a pick-6.
Let’s face it, the Gus Bus is currently riding on the rims and has been ever since the third game of the season when six starters, including Gabriel, went down with varying degrees of injuries. Without Gabriel and an array of other starters, Malzahn has had to totally simplify his offense to accommodate Keene.
Of course, fans don’t want to hear about injuries and how football is a game of attrition. They don’t want to hear about how losing a quarterback can totally change the flight path of a season and even a career. If you don’t think it can, just ask former UCF coach Josh Heupel, who was the offensive coordinator at his beloved alma mater, Oklahoma, in 2014 when a slew of injuries at quarterback stifled the Sooners’ offense. Oklahoma finished with a disappointing 8-5 record that season and Heupel was shockingly fired by head coach Bob Stoops.
Not that Malzahn is in any danger of getting fired, but the point is his inaugural season has pretty much been wrecked by Gabriel’s broken collarbone. Not that Keene has been bad, but he was no match for a ferocious Cincinnati defense that held UCF to just 296 total yards — nearly 200 below the Knights’ seasonal average.
Certainly, it’s no fun watching your team get clobbered as UCF fans did on Saturday, but now the Knights should be rooting for the Bearcats to become the first Group of 5 team to make the College Football Playoff. Not only did UCF’s back-to-back unbeaten regular seasons in 2017-2018 put the Group of 5 on the CFB Playoff Committee’s radar, the Knights incentivized Cincinnati to get better. In his first two years on the job, UCF beat Fickell’s teams by a combined score of 89-36, but now Fickell’s program is one of the most dominant in the country.
I hate to say it, but this Cincinnati team, at least thus far, is better than UCF’s self-proclaimed national title team of 2017. Why? Because this Cincinnati team is dominant on both sides of the ball. Heading into Saturday’s game, the Bearcats had the No. 2 scoring defense in the country and the No. 9 scoring offense. In 2017, UCF had the No. 1 scoring offense but only the No. 52 scoring defense. Moreover, UCF in 2017 played close games against USF, Memphis, SMU and Navy; I’m not so sure any conference team will stay within four TDs of Cincinnati this season.
“That team can play with any team in the country,” Malzahn said of the Bearcats. “They have a complete team — offensively, defensively and special teams. They can win the whole thing.”
Four years ago after getting blown out by the Knights in his first season, Fickell vowed to get better and to elevate his program to UCF’s level. Now it’s up to Malzahn to do the same and raise his program to Cincinnati’s level.
Understandably, the embarrassing loss on Saturday is one Knight Nation would like to forget, but that would be a big mistake.
Malzahn realizes that this is a beating he, his team and this program must always remember.
As the late, great Woody Hayes once said, “There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.”
