Holton Ahlers Passed Pirates Past Knights, 34-13
Despite playing hard all night long and battling to the end, the UCF Knights came up short against the East Carolina Pirates.
The player of the game is no doubt East Carolina signal caller Holton Ahlers. He shredded UCF tonight, going 30 of 36, 83.3%, 311 yards, 8.6 per attempt, and one touchdown. He was consistent all night, too (see below). More importantly, no interceptions for Ahlers. That cannot be said for his counterpart.
The biggest issue with the final score of 34-13 can be placed at the feet of turnovers. Three of them in the first half by quarterback John Rhys Plumlee, two of which were interceptions, and then one more pick right before the end of the game, that made it four turnovers for the game.
He finished 25 of 37 for 296 yards, but those three interceptions...
Those Plumlee giveaways allowed the Pirates to dominate the clock, control the football, and totally seize momentum throughout the first half. It totally changed the play calling in the second half as well. Still, the Knights battled out of the locker room in the third quarter.
An early second half drive to give UCF its lone touchdown of the game. Unfortunately, that was quickly answered by East Carolina’s first drive of the second half. After swapping touchdowns, it was 24-10 Pirates over the Knights with 6:23 remaining in the third quarter.
That’s when it became clear that the attrition of all the plays the defense went through in the first half would be an issue. For the game, East Carolina rolled up 69 total plays, but look at how many happened early in the contest.
That deficit was just too much to overcome.
Those early reps hurt UCF’s defense, especially with Ahlers just throwing dimes. The Pirates did not punt for the first time until 7:15 remaining in the fourth quarter. Let that one sink in for a moment. Now let us dig into how good Ahlers performed beyond the basic passing numbers.
He was in command from the outset of the game until halftime when East Carolina led 17-3, and continued his excellent performance after halftime. When the Pirates needed a play, Ahlers was the man to make that play. Another way to look at it, he controlled the third downs with his in-game decision making.
For the game, the Pirates were 9-of-14 on third down. To make matters worse, they converted their one fourth down. No team is going to keep the opposition from scoring when it’s being destroyed during third down plays like that.
Coming into the contest, UCF’s defense was No. 13 in the nation by allowing just 29.1% of third downs to be converted against them. The Pirates destroyed that statistic and then some. Here’s the other part of how good Ahlers performed.
One would think that after all the hits he took, and there were a bunch, plus him even running a few times and receiving hits, that Ahlers would finally succumb to a few misplaced passes.
Nope. That’s not the case at all.
He just kept throwing darts. Each pass was placed where his man could get it and it was really difficult for a UCF defender to bat down a pass. After three quarters, it was like, is this guy human?
There were several problems for UCF beyond defending Ahlers, including doing a poor job of containing the edges of the defense and allowing running back Keaton Mitchell to rush for 105 yards and two touchdowns.
With the loss, UCF falls to 2-1 in the American Athletic Conference and 5-2 overall. Up next, the competition just gets tougher. Into FBC Mortgage Stadium come the Cincinnati Bearcats, a team currently ranked No. 21 in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll.
Ironically, if UCF knocks off Cincinnati (3-0 in the AAC), and then later defeats Tulane (4-0 in the AAC), they will be in control of winning the AAC regular season title. There’s no time for UCF to dwell on tonight’s misstep. Time for UCF to get ready for Cincinnati (Oct. 29) at home.
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