UCF Football: 3 takeaways from statement win over Stanford

UCF had little difficulty toppling preseason Pac-12 contender Stanford at home in Week 3. What should we take away from the Knights blowout of the Cardinal?

Over the past two years, one of the biggest knocks against UCF has been that the Knights played a weak schedule en route to two straight undefeated regular seasons. Week 3 offered a prime opportunity to change that narrative, as perennial Pac-12 powerhouse traveled to Orlando to square off against No. 17 UCF on their home turf at Spectrum Stadium.

The Knights took full advantage of the opportunity, engineering a comprehensive beatdown of the Cardinal on Saturday afternoon to improve to 3-0 in 2019 and win their 27th straight regular-season outing. Josh Heupel’s squad came up big in all phases of the game, making Stanford look downright ordinary both when they had the ball and when the Cardinal were on defense.

The result was a 45-27 victory that could push UCF up into the top 15 of the next AP Top 25 to come out ahead of Week 4. With another Power Five statement opportunity on the schedule against Pitt, the Knights bolstered their schedule strength at a time when it could potentially benefit them in the College Football Playoff discussion.

Of course, they missed the chance to take on a ranked Stanford team after the Cardinal laid an egg in Week 2 against USC. But that should not take away from what was a far more impressive victory by the Knights than the Trojans were able to engineer against David Shaw’s squad.

What should we take away from this UCF blowout? Here are three things we learned about the gold standard in the Group of Five on Saturday afternoon in Orlando.