By JUSTIN KANE
Champions.
That’s what the University of Central Florida can call themselves after their 17-7 victory in the Conference-USA championship game Dec. 4 at Bright House Networks Stadium.
With the win UCF recorded their first back-to-back winning seasons since head coach George O’Leary became coach in 2004. 10 wins ties a school record for wins set in 2007, the last time UCF won the C-USA, with UCF having a shot of 11 wins this year.
UCF finished out the year 25th in the Bowl Championship Series rankings, their first ever ranking in school history. They also had eight regular season games televised on national TV, another school first.
In their fourth ever bowl berth the Knights take on Georgia (6-6, 3-5 in the SEC) on New Year’s Eve in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. O’Leary is familiar with Georgia, he went 3-5 against the Bulldogs when he coached at Georgia Tech.
The Bulldogs went 1-4 to start the year and then 5-2 to finish the season to wind up 6-6 and bowl eligible. They went 0-3 this year against ranked teams. Leading the Bulldogs is freshman quarterback Aaron Murray who threw for 2,851 yards. He also threw 24 touchdowns compared to six interceptions.
He’s not superman though. Murray was sacked 21 times throughout the year. UCF as a team recorded 29 sacks this season with Darius Nall leading the way with 8.5 sacks.
The game should be high scoring seeing how UCF and Georgia are 24th and 23rd in points per game, respectively. UCF is a better defensive team as they rank 12th in the country in points allowed, with 18.