A week ago, I was all over Notre Dame as a significant road favorite against BYU in Provo, and that prediction turned out to be completely incorrect as the Cougars put together their best performance of the season to spring the upset. It was one of the many shocking results on last Saturday's slate, and it was arguably the biggest home victory in the history of the program for a BYU team that is suddenly ranked inside the top 5 of the AP Poll and has a clear path to the College Football Playoff. With that in mind, this sets up one of the more obvious letdown spots of the weekend, and I'll be taking advantage of it.
From a situational perspective, this is about as good of a spot as we'll get all season. After all, not only did BYU just win one of the biggest games in program history, it did so in thrilling fashion on the final play of the game. Now, the Cougars will have to travel all the way across the country for a date with UCF in Orlando. It's reasonable to expect a slow start out of Bear Bachmeier and company, especially with temperatures expected to be in the upper 70s at kickoff. As for the hosts, the Golden Knights are expected to be without Alonza Barnett III for yet another week, but they have been able to adapt and win multiple games without the former James Madison quarterback under center, and they even were pretty competitive in road losses to Houston and Oklahoma State. UCF boasts a rock-solid defense (32nd in EPA per play, 27th in EPA per rush), which should give them a high enough floor to compete for four quarters in this matchup. Let's back the Golden Knights to keep things within a touchdown at home.
BYU vs UCF prediction: UCF +7 (-120) available at time of publishing. Playable to UCF +6.5 (-110).
