UCF Football: 3 bold predictions vs. Houston in Week 9

Houston is unbeaten in conference play, but UCF football is still a force to be reckoned with in the AAC. Both teams are getting ready for a shootout.

Nobody is looking past UCF just because they lost a couple of games. Houston, who was outclassed by UCF last season in Orlando, knows this as well as anyone. The Knights’ offense is deadly, led by a veteran running back room and the country’s leading passer, Dillon Gabriel.

Houston, much improved from last season, is ready. The Cougars will bring their own high-flying offense to the game, looking to take advantage of a struggling UCF defense.

The offenses will look to attack the defenses similarly. They both threaten stretch you out by attacking with speed over the top, only to loosen your front seven, which creates easy gaps to run through. Neither defense has done much to prove they can slow down the other, so expect a barn burner in Houston.

1. Houston will be more heavily penalized than UCF

UCF largely lost to Tulsa due to their awful penalty habit, which had already become a national joke the week before when they had four false starts before they got their first snap off at ECU. The Knights currently sit at 93 out of 101 possible teams in terms of penalty yards per game. 

The kicker is that Houston is 98th.

UCF’s problems, while wider spread through three games than Houston’s through the same span, have been reigned in by coach Josh Heupel. It seems they’ve settled down, and taken care of their false start hiccups. Houston, meanwhile, has shown no signs of turning around their penalty issue, which reared its ugly head against Navy.