GAME SNAPSHOT
KICKOFF: Saturday, 7 p.m. ET
SITE: Dowdy-Ficken Stadium, Greenville, N.C.
TV: ESPN2
SERIES: East Carolina leads 10-6. UCF won the last meeting 63-21 in 2017.
RANKINGS: UCF No. 10
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Knights
–QB McKenzie Milton is a point-producing machine. He is responsible for 132 points with six rushing touchdowns and 16 touchdown passes. His average of 22 points a game would cover four of the team’s six wins this season alone.
–WR Gabriel Davis has averaged 5.5 receptions a game, which is fourth in the AAC. He has caught a touchdown pass in five of UCF’s six outings and recorded his second 100-yard receiving game of the season with 128 yards on six catches last week against Memphis.
–DE Brandon Hayes is UCF’s sack leader with three of the team’s total of 10. He has three other tackles for loss among his 17 stops. A junior, he has started the last five games.
Pirates
–QB Holton Ahlers is slated to get his first start after guiding the Pirates to two late touchdowns in last week’s loss to Houston, who had two passes picked off. Ahlers was 11-of-18 passing for 137 yards and no interceptions after taking over for Reid Herring. He also rushed for a team-high 45 yards. The true freshman has rushed for a team-high 248 yards for the season.
–WR Trevon Brown is East Carolina’s leading receiver with 36 receptions for 500 yards. He has three catches for touchdowns. He had 13 receptions for 153 yards and a touchdown last week against Houston.
–DE Nate Harvey is the national leader in sacks (8.5 total, 1.42 per game) and tackles for loss (17-5 total, 2.92 per game). He is just 3.5 TFLs short of the school single-season record of 21 set by Chris Moore in 2004. The school sack record is 15 by Rod Coleman (1997).
KEYS
TO THE GAME
Undefeated UCF keeps winning, but doesn’t seem to be gaining much in the way of respect.
The Knights (6-0, 3-0 American Athletic Conference) have won 19 consecutive games going into Saturday’s contest at East Carolina. Kickoff at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, N.C., is 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
But they remained at No. 10 in the rankings following their 31-30 victory at Memphis last week.
This may not settle well with their fans, and athletic director Danny White sent out a tweet to them this week essentially preaching patience after several teams that were ranked ahead of the Knights last week — most notably No. 6 West Virginia, No. 7 Washington and No. 8 Penn State — all lost but others jumped ahead of UCF to take their places in this week’s poll.
The perceived snub doesn’t seem to bother Knights coach Josh Heupel.
“I really still do believe at the end of the year that they’re going to look at who we played, how we played, gone undefeated if you run the table and then that will take care of itself,” Heupel said in an Orlando Sentinel report. “At the end of the day, we’re a long ways away from that conversation inside of our team, inside of our building.”
Quarterback McKenzie Milton backed up his coach’s contention.
“Rankings are rankings and it’s been like that since last year,” Milton said. “So it is what it is, and we’re just going to go out and keep winning games and keep doing what we’re doing.”
Georgia was a fourth Top 10 team that lost last week but dropped from No. 2 to No. 8 in the poll. LSU’s win over the Bulldogs vaulted the Tigers from No. 13 to No. 5. Michigan went to from No. 13 to No. 7 with a big win over Wisconsin and Oklahoma went past UCF to No. 9 from No. 11 despite sitting idle.
In addition, Notre Dame moved up a spot to No. 4 despite struggling to a 19-14 win over a Pittsburgh team that UCF routed 45-14 earlier this season.
Possibly voters were holding the close call at Memphis against the Knights, but quarterback McKenzie Milton had a different take on that game.
“The way our team didn’t point fingers at each other but stuck together was huge testament to what kind of guys we have in that locker room and the kind of leaders we have,” he said. “I think it’s huge to win games like that. Hopefully, we won’t be in too many of them.”
East Carolina coach Scottie Montgomery believes the Knights belong in the Top 5.
“They have definitely done what they are supposed to do to get themselves ranked so high, and they probably should be ranked a lot higher,” he said. “They are led by one of the best players in college football in McKenzie Milton.
“Defensively, they have done a great job of utilizing their speed on the back end to match their physicality on the front. They are a really good football team, and we will have to be ready to go.”
Montgomery’s Pirates (2-4, 0-3 AAC) have dropped their last two games, 49-6 to Temple and 42-20 to Houston, but Montgomery was encouraged by what he saw in the loss to the Cougars.
He also plans to unleash quarterback Holton Ahlers, who guided the Panthers to a pair of late touchdowns against Houston.
“With Holton, we all have to realize that there will be some bad plays in there but also some really good ones,” Montgomery said. “We will have to work through it, as he is a true freshman starting at quarterback. I am looking forward to him playing a lot.
“We could see some other guys in there depending on where we are in the game, but I really want to give him an opportunity to build on his performance over the weekend.”
