UCF Wins Big Over Temple in Space Game

UCF hosted Temple on Thursday night for their 6th annual Space Game and 100th game in the Bounce House. The Knights dominated, in one of their best games of the season, leading to a 70-13 win over Temple.

UCF was firing on all cylinders on Thursday night. Postgame, Malzahn said, “Real pleased with our team. I think we played our best football game tonight. Early on, they moved the football, our defense held them to field goals. Offensively, I thought we had some good rhythm early – had some good drives.”

The offense put together a very impressive performance, scoring 70 points, the most for any UCF team under Gus Malzahn. The Knights threw for 433 passing yards and rushed for 304 yards, combining for 737 total yards of offense.

The Knights’ offense put up these impressive stats while being very efficient. The offense went 8-9 on third downs, 6-6 in the red-zone, and scored a touchdown on 10-12 total possessions, while committing no turnovers.

“You can’t have enough depth in college football. What I like in that whole fourth quarter and early third quarter, we put our young guys in there and it didn’t get sloppy. They played good football.”
– Gus Malzahn

John Rhys Plumlee had a great game leading the offense, scoring 7 total touchdowns. Plumlee threw for 373 yards and 4 touchdowns, while completing 18-22 pass attempts. He also ran for 37 yards and 3 touchdowns.

The defense had another great performance, shutting-out the Temple offense, and holding them to 90 yards of total offense in the 2nd half. The UCF defense held Temple to 13 points, which was the 9th straight game holding opponents under 20 points. They were able to force the Temple offense off the field by performing well on third and fourth downs. Temple only converted 7-17 third down opportunities and went 0-2 on fourth down opportunities.

Due to the lopsided score, Malzahn and his staff were able to get their younger players some playing time in 2nd half.

True freshman quarterback, Thomas Castellanos, looked comfortable in his first opportunity to run the offense for an extended period of time. Castellanos came in towards the end of the 3rd quarter and led two touchdown-scoring drives. Castellanos led the team in rushing yards with 88 yards on the ground, including a 37 yard touchdown run. He also threw for 60 yards, while completing 6-6 pass attempts.

Regarding the play from his younger players, Malzahn said, “You can’t have enough depth in college football. What I like in that whole fourth quarter and early third quarter, we put our young guys in there and it didn’t get sloppy. They played good football.”

With the win, UCF moves to 5-1 overall and 2-0 in conference play.