I’m sure many in the Knight Nation expected the 31-30 nailbiter against Memphis would be the low point of the season for UCF in 2018. But no one expected what came to pass in Greenville, North Carolina this past Saturday night visiting the Pirates of East Carolina. Darriell Mack Jr. got his first start under center over star quarterback McKenzie Milton under a shroud of mystery. While we know now that Milton was kept from the game thanks to ankle and shoulder concerns that have limited his practice time as far back as the week leading into the narrow Tiger victory it didn’t matter on the field as the Knights dominated the Pirates 37-10 to extend the win streak to 20.

While UCF Head Coach Josh Heupel made it clear that he and his players would not slack off in their preparation to face ECU, one can’t help but notice that he has also picked this game to give Milton an extended opportunity to rest with the bye upcoming. Considering that Temple, the team that handed Cincinnati its first loss is the next home game on Thursday, November 1st, it’s certainly hard to argue with Heupel’s foresight.

All this happened less than 12 hours after the panel of ESPN’s College Gameday launched a verbal assault on the Knights championship aspirations lead by Kirk Herbstreit. With UCF fans freshly irate from observing Mr. Herbstreit’s hot take throughout the day, one can only imagine how the prospect of Milton’s benching sat in their stomachs. After being told that Fresno State, Utah State, and Appalachian State are more deserving of national praise than the Knights, to see their Heisman trophy candidate passer on the sideline throughout the game could have only turned anger into agony.

But with that said, we’ve now witnessed the latest argument by the UCF Twitter Mafia up there with “we beat Pitt by 31 points when Notre Dame only beat them by five”. Would anyone really be surprised if the next question asked by Knight fans is “How many Top 25 teams have won games starting their backup quarterback”? I also suspect that their detractors won’t be any further deterred.

Kyle Nash, known as The Student of the Game, covers UCF Football for SportsMediaPass.com and is a special contributor for Break the Fourth. He’s a also a writer for the DolphinsWire of USA Today and co-host of the DinnerTime and Default Assault podcasts.