LSU Football: 3 reasons to watch 2019 Playstation Fiesta Bowl vs. UCF
By Zach Bigalke
3. Can UCF win again in a bowl game against an SEC opponent?
In 2017, Auburn entered the Peach Bowl against UCF with one of the hardest schedules under their belt from the regular season. The Tigers had played three of the four College Football Playoff participants, beating both Alabama and SEC champion Georgia while narrowly losing to ACC champ Clemson.
Similarly, LSU played one of the toughest schedules in the country in 2018. Among the former BCS computers and several other calculations, the Tigers’ schedule ranks anywhere between the third-hardest and the 20th-toughest in the country. While it wasn’t quite the gauntlet run by Auburn a year before, nobody calculating such things says it was worse than a top-20 series of tests.
At face value, that should mean that LSU is better prepared to shut down UCF than any other opponent the Knights faced over the course of the regular season. But that’s what we thought last year as well, and the results on the field challenged everything we thought we knew. Like Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl against Utah, Auburn fell flat against UCF.