Lower than 24 hours after UCF defeated North Carolina handily final Saturday, Knights offensive line coach Shawn Clark handed away. He had been hospitalized on Sept. 9 with a medical emergency.
“The response of our gamers and coaches to the information this morning is a testomony to Shawn’s character and the influence he had on each life that he touched,” UCF head coach Scott Frost mentioned on Sunday. “He was cherished.”
Within the days that adopted, the Knights labored via their grief whereas additionally getting ready for his or her Large 12 opener. UCF (3-0) visits Kansas State (1-3, 0-1) on Saturday in Manhattan, Kan.
In the course of the Knights’ 34-9 win over North Carolina, quarterback Tayven Jackson picked up touchdowns within the air and on the bottom with 223 passing yards and 66 speeding yards. Myles Montgomery and Jaden Nixon added speeding scores to provide the Knights 10 speeding touchdowns on the season between 5 gamers.
Kansas State, in the meantime, had a bye week following a 24-21 defeat to the Arizona Wildcats on Sept. 12. Kansas State hopes to leverage a feisty house crowd to select up its second house win of the season — and Frost senses what’s forward for his squad.
“I coached at Manhattan, Kansas, my first teaching job,” Frost mentioned. “I do know what sort of atmosphere that’s. I coached with coach (Chris) Klieman. I do know what sort of coach he’s. … That is going to be an enormous problem.”
Judging by Kansas State’s efficiency towards Arizona, although, UCF’s speeding assault may discover room. The Wildcats allowed 189 yards to operating again Ismail Mahdi whereas quarterback Noah Fifita rushed for 2 scores.
“On protection, typically it is not going to be match completely, but when we get disruption and get into the backfield, some higher issues are going to occur,” Klieman mentioned. “We’ve not had sufficient TFLs, tackles for loss, and whether or not that is the scheme, whether or not it is youngsters taking part in tentative to not eager to mess up, we have to sort of get rid of that for my part and simply hearth off and create some havoc.”
Saturday marks solely the third time the 2 sides have confronted one another, with the Wildcats profitable their first Large 12 matchup towards the Knights in September 2023.
–Subject Degree Media
