The University of Central Florida beat the eighth ranked Louisville Cardinals 38-35 in a great football game on Friday night. The Knights picked up their biggest win in school history. UCF had never beaten a top ten team in history. The victory brought the Knights into the top twenty five in all three of the polls. The BCS rankings have the Knights at 23. UCF now controls their own destiny for the American Athletic Conference. If UCF were to win the rest of their games, the Knights would have an automatic bid to a BCS bowl game.
The loss for the Cardinals was demoralizing. Everything the Cardinals expected for this season may have been lost in the loss. Louisville had an outside chance of making it to the national title game, but those hopes were crushed. Along with the national title hopes went quarterback Teddy Bridgewaters dreams of winning the Heisman Trophy. Bridgewater has had a great season, but with all the tough competition for the award, Bridgewater had to lead Louisville to an undefeated season to put him as a true candidate. Teddy will still have to play good football to get the team back into contention to win the American Athletic Conference.
The Knights were once down by twenty one points in the third quarter, but they didn’t lose faith and stormed back behind two touchdowns by Storm Johnson. UCF tied the game before entering the fourth quarter. In the fourth, the Knights kicked a field to take the lead, but the Cardinals rushed down the field and scored a touchdown to take back the lead. With three minutes left, UCF had to stay poised behind quarterback Blake Bortles. The Knights drove down the field and scored a touchdown with twenty three seconds left to take the lead. Bortles threw the touchdown pass to the Knights old quarterback Jeff Godfrey. The Knights shocked the nation with this win and are now a team to watch out for the rest of the season.