Padron had two fumbles for the day, both recovered by Line, in SMU’s 17-7 loss to UCF. (Emry Kelly/Central Florida Future)
The Mustangs take on the University of Central Florida this Saturday in a crucial Conference USA matchup.
The game is also a rematch of last year’s Conference USA Championship, in which UCF defeated SMU 17-7 in Orlando, Fla.
The two schools have only met three times since SMU joined Conference USA in 2005.
UCF has won all three games with two wins in Orlando and one in Dallas.
The Mustangs will be playing without senior wide receiver Cole Beasley again as he is reported as doubtful for Saturday according to Collegeinjuryreport.com.
The receiving core will be led by junior wide-out Darius Johnson who led the Mustangs two weeks ago against TCU with 152 yards and two touchdowns.
In Joshnson’s last two games he totaled 278 yards and four touchdowns.
Last season alone, Johnson had six touchdowns.
Senior quarterback J.J. McDermott has also showed improvement in scoring.
In the first three games of the season, when the Mustangs were mainly dependent on the scoring of junior running back Zach Line, McDermott had only one passing touchdown.
In the past two games against Memphis and TCU, he has thrown seven and passed for 706 yards.
SMU is now ranked 12 in the nation in passing yards.
Line has racked up 256 yards on the ground and averaged 6.25 yards per attempt with a season average of 5.9.
The rising SMU offense has scored over 40 or points that raises their average to 32.8 points per game and ranks them 39 in the country.
The Mustangs will face a strong Knight defense that has only allowed 10 points per game, ranking second in the nation behind No. 2 Alabama, who has only allowed seven per game.
The Knights defense will look to combat Line’s six yards per attempt with a season average of only about three yards per attempt.
UCF has also only allowed 100 yards in the air and the secondary has never allowed a single passing touchdown.
As a whole, they have only allowed 177 yards in total offense per game, a number that Line could reasonably put up
himself.
One number that the Mustangs had unusual success in against TCU was their third-down conversion percentage. SMU converted seven out of 15 attempts, or about 47 percent The Knights defense allows conversions on about a quarter of their opponent’s attempts.
In the first half of all five of UCF’s games, they allowed a total of 13 points.
The UCF defense is led by senior linebacker Josh Linam who leads the team in both tackles (28) and sacks (2.0) and also has an interception and a fumble forced and recovered.
Linam is coming off one of his best performances last week against Marshall when he recorded six tackles, one sack and his fumble that he forced and recovered.
The Mustangs are 4-1 on the season and are 2-0 in Conference USA. UCF is 3-2 overall and 1-0 in Conference USA.
SMU is tied for first in the West Division with No. 25 Houston and UCF is atop the East Division with Southern Miss only a half game behind.
The Mustangs will be looking to start a season 5-1 for the first time since 1986.
The Mustangs will take on the Knights this Saturday at 2:30 pm at Gerald J. Ford Stadium.
They also encourage fans to “Red Out” this game.
If you can’t make it to the game, it will also be aired on Fox Sports Network.
