UCF came away from its first Big 12 game of the season 1-0 with a gritty 21-13 victory over the TCU Horned Frogs. A solid day by the defense helped lift the Knights in this tight matchup.
Stout Knight defense
TCU entered the game averaging nearly 35 points and almost 500 yards per game. Against the Knights those numbers were 13 and 343, respectively. UCF racked up eight tackles-for-loss (one off its season high) including a high watermark of four sacks. Cornerback Jayden Bellamy said the defense came in with a chip on its shoulder.
Isaiah Nixon had 1.5 of those sacks and tied with Jeffson Lafontant for the team lead at 2.5 TFLs as the UCF defensive front limited TCU to just 33 rushing yards. Lafontant said they wanted to get the win for head coach Scott Frost.
“We wanted to get after the ball, stop the run,” he said.
Turnovers galore
It was an uneven first 30 minutes as both squads combined for four turnovers. Bellamy was involved on defense, forcing a fumble that UCF turned into a Taevion Swint touchdown and later grabbing an interception. Bellamy said that punch out and fumble recovery on the third play of the game set the tone.
“I’ve been through a lot of football, played a lot of snaps, so it means a lot, coming out here and getting takeaways,” Bellamy said. “It was big because I was really preaching on myself to be the best Big 12 corner.”
The Knights got another interception late in the contest with a clutch grab by Antione Jackson that halted a TCU drive and helped the Knights essentially ice the game. The Knights moved to 12-2 when forcing three or more takeaways under Frost.
But the Horned Frogs had their takeaways too, cutting off two UCF drives by pouncing on fumbles by Keyone Jenkins. Frost didn’t have much to say to his quarterback except for there was a lot of game left when those fumbles happened.
Jenkins spreading it around
Even with the turnovers, the senior had a productive day. He diversified his targets as 10 different receivers caught passes from Jenkins for 160 yards and a touchdown to Caden Piening.
Jenkins finished 19-for-20 to set a new completion percentage record at 95 percent with a 178.7 passer rating, including 14 consecutive completions at one point. The last time Jenkins remembers doing something similar was his senior year of high school.
Jenkins said he doesn’t look at stats, he just plays football. He did say that play-calling really helped him settle in.
“We felt great about the game plan coming into it,” Jenkins said. “The whole staff, the whole team, the whole offense as well. And we just came out to execute it.”