5 things to know about UCF

UCF went from being the only AAC team to beat Tulane this season to losing to Tulane in the AAC championship game a couple of weeks ago.

That put Tulane in the Cotton Bowl against USC; it cycled UCF, playing its final game was a Group of 5 conference member, to the Military Bowl against Duke.

“(We) have a lot of respect for the UCF program,” Duke coach Mike Elko said earlier this month. “It’s certainly a program that’s been on the national stage over the years.”

UCF is 9-4 for the second straight season, both of them under coach Gus Malzahn. The Knights are aiming for a 10th win, which would be the fourth time in the last six seasons of reaching double-digit wins.

Here are five things to know about UCF ahead of the Military Bowl:

UCF’s bags are picked and it’s ready to go to the Big 12 this summer, but the Knights couldn’t snag their fifth AAC championship in 10 years of membership.

That’s because Tulane beat UCF 45-28 a couple of weeks ago, as the Green Wave completed a crazier turnaround than that of Duke’s this season — going from 2-10 last season to 11-2.

UCF held Tulane to 391 yards in the regular-season meeting, but the floodgates opened to the tune of 648 yards in the AAC championship.

Tulane led 31-14 early in the fourth quarterback before UCF struck quickly for a couple of touchdowns — the first of which was a 49-yard pass by running back RJ Harvey, and the second of which was a 30-yard touchdown drive set up by a fumble.

Tulane reestablished a two-score lead quickly, though, and scored again to give the game its 17-point margin.

You’re bound to see some similarities between UCF’s quarterback and Duke’s Riley Leonard (aside from height).

Plumlee transferred to UCF after playing at Mississippi for the last three seasons, where he transitioned from quarterback to wide receiver. He transferred to UCF and returned to quarterback, passing for 2,404 yards and 14 touchdowns (against seven interceptions), and rushing for 841 yards and 11 touchdowns this season.

Leonard's stats this season: 2,794 yards and 20 touchdowns (six interceptions), and rushed for 636 yards and 11 touchdowns.

The 6-foot, 200-pound Plumlee rushed for a season-high 176 yards in UCF’s 38-31 win over Tulane on Nov. 12. But he dealt with a nagging hamstring issue in the weeks since and in the AAC championship game rematch, the Green Wave held him to minus-7 yards on nine rushes.

One of Duke’s best defensive players came from Western Illinois in Darius Joiner; one of UCF’s best defensive players came from Eastern Illinois.

Jason Johnson has 119 tackles this season, which is the 12th-most in the country. The linebacker transferred into UCF after spending the last three seasons at Eastern Illinois, where he was a first-team All-Ohio Valley Conference player in the previous two seasons.

The 6-2, 224-pounder also forced two fumbles and recovered two fumbles this season.

Johnson is bound to be an even bigger centerpiece — if that’s possible — to UCF’s defense in the bowl game, as linebacker Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste has entered the transfer portal. Jean-Baptiste had 52 tackles in 10 games this season and was a captain.

UCF lost a low-scoring game against an ACC team that saw its coach leave recently and beat an ACC team that fired its coach two days later.

The Knights scored touchdowns on two of their first three possessions against Louisville on Sept. 9, taking a seven-point lead into halftime. But UCF had seven punts, an interception, a missed field goal and a turnover on downs on its last 10 possessions of a 20-14 loss to the Cardinals, who recently replaced Scott Satterfield with native son Jeff Brohm as coach.

On Sept. 24, UCF beat Georgia Tech 27-10 — though that score is a bit misleading, as it was 16-10 entering the fourth quarter and GT outgained UCF 452-333. Two days after that game, Geoff Collins was fired and Brent Key was named the interim coach, with Key awarded the full-time job after the season.

As far as shared opponents go: Duke lost to Georgia Tech 23-20 in overtime two weeks after UCF beat the Yellow Jackets.

The Blue Devils didn’t play Louisville this season but there is a second shared opponent; Duke beat Temple 30-0 in the season opener, while UCF laid 70 points and 737 yards on the Owls in AAC play.

Duke will eventually face Chip Lindsey’s offense; it’ll just be sometime in the next 12 months instead of about two weeks from now.

Lindsey was announced Thursday morning as the new offensive coordinator/QBs coach at North Carolina.

He’s leaving UCF after one season, having been head coach at Troy for the three previous seasons. The Knights were No. 1 in the AAC in total offense (480.6 yards per game, 11th nationally), but were fifth in scoring in the AAC (34.4 points per game).

Lindsey has bounced around and this was his third stint under Malzahn. The first one was an offensive analyst for the 2013 Auburn team that lost to Florida State in the national championship; the second was a two-year stay as Auburn’s offensive coordinator/QBs coach in 2017-18.

It was unclear initially if Lindsey would remain with the Knights to coach in the Military Bowl, or if he would be replaced.