New Year’s Day is as good of a lineup as you will find for the avid sports fan. The nightcap culminates the special day with the largest spread of the card when Central Florida takes on Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl.
This is a game filled with an illustrious history of upsets and intriguing match-ups. For the Knights and Bears, this game will be the end of record setting seasons for each university. Both programs have incredible excitement as they prep for this opportunity on national television.
Baylor jumped out to an incredible start this year and rang up eye-popping numbers against Big 12 competition. They slipped up down the stretch, but their 11-1 is indicative just how good Art Briles and Bryce Petty are.
This Baylor team has a host of weapons on offense. They also get Tevin Reese back following a sizable stint on the injury list. Reese missed the last five games of the season. Several other injuries derailed Baylor as well down the stretch, but they should be mostly healthy here.
Their biggest issues late in the year centered around an inability to put up huge offensive numbers. Oklahoma State and Texas neutralized them with sound secondary play, while TCU gave them a road scare as well in a 41-38 loss.
Central Florida is an interesting opponent for them considering what they too were able to accomplish this year, however. George O’Leary is an outstanding, veteran coach. He has a roster chalk full of Florida talent, and it just so happens he has a quarterback who can really play.
Blake Bortles has come in recently into the national spotlight according to many draft analysts and college football followers. He had a great year statistically and proved more than capable of delivering time and time again for the upstart Knights.
Bortles is well built at 6’4 and can scramble with the ball when need be. He has good pocket awareness and can spread it to a slew of weapons. Jeff Godfrey, J.J. Worton and Rannell Hall are all veterans with talent and enough size. they’ll have their hands full with an excellent Baylor secondary, but they could be well built to play this game.
Central Florida utilizes a nice run/pass mix, and it could prove perfect when playing an up tempo bunch. They have two backs who can carry it, and Storm Johnson is capable of contributing heavily in the passing game.
While they could prove capable of implementing a slow down style that could take Baylor out of its comfort zone, they are also not likely to control the line of scrimmage in this game. Their offensive line struggled to keep Broyles standing up later in the year, and Baylor has a superb defensive line.
UCF should be able to hold up early in this game defensively, but there are significant concerns for them should they not be able to protect their quarterback. They lack the power run element to truly control clock over the course of 60 minutes.
This could be a more exciting game than some people are projecting, but Baylor is the type of group that does command a huge number. This line moved a bit to 17.5 and even 18 on some sites before dipping back down to the 16.5-17.
You can’t read anything into this line movement, but there is always a certain appeal to a number this big. The motivation will be there and UCF has the talent to compete in this game. I’m not expecting Baylor to blow this one off, but UCF should have what it takes at this number.
UCF +17
