NCAA Football ucf Knights

ORLANDO, Fla. - Good Knight, Case.

Case Keenum's late-game dramatics -- not to mention his Heisman Trophy consideration -- wilted under a brilliant Florida sun and an inspired Central Florida defense Saturday afternoon. Despite throwing two touchdowns in the closing minutes, Keenum and 13th-ranked Houston ran out of time in their 37-32 defeat to a band of merry Knights who clinched the program's first win over a nationally-ranked team.

"Whether it was making mistakes or them playing really hard ... they did a good job of covering down field and putting pressure on me," said Keenum, who had led Houston to consecutive victories over Southern Miss and Tulsa last week on last-minute scoring drives.

ORLANDO, Fla.(AP) -- Central Florida not only found a way to slow down Case Keenum and No. 13 Houston, the Knights didn't give the nation's most prolific passer a chance to pull off another improbable comeback.

Brett Hodges outplayed the Cougars quarterback and Brynn Harvey rushed for 139 yards and three touchdowns Saturday, leading UCF to a 37-32 upset that stopped a five-game winning streak Keenum had kept alive with a pair of last-minute rallies.

Harvey scored on runs of 1, 41 and 7 yards, the last set up by an interception that stopped Keenum's streak of consecutive passing attempts without a pick at 123. Hodges completed 21 of 25 passes for 241 yards and one TD.

Keenum threw for two TDs in the closing minutes, cutting into a 17-point deficit. He finished 33 of 56 for 377 yards and three scores. He had more than 500 yards in each of the previous two games.

If Central Florida's maligned pass defense is looking for motivation, well, here it is: The last time Case Keenum did not throw a touchdown pass was on Nov. 10, 2007, in a 56-7 defeat at Tulsa.

So it can be done.

Keenum's aerial show visits the Sunshine State on Saturday, when No. 12 Houston meets UCF in a key Conference USA showdown in Orlando. Better yet, it's also another great opportunity for Keenum, who has thrown for more than 1,000 yards in his past two games alone, to impress Heisman Trophy voters. That's if Keenum cares.

"I don't know what the Heisman voters are thinking," Keenum said.

"My goal right now is to beat UCF. My goal is not to win the Heisman or break records. Any individual award is a team award. If you're not being successful and winning games, those team accolades are not going to come your way."

George O'Leary is a man that lives on the edge. Clearly. So it should come as no real surprise that when Iliana Limon, a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, tried to call into a conference call, she was greeted with a phone sex line introduction.

Wait. That should be a surprise. Ah. Turns out the PR guy, whose job security is likely through the roof right now, handed out the wrong number to reporters.

When I dialed in, the voice on the other line said, "Hi sexy, you've reached the one-on-one fantasy line." I gasped, hung up and figured I must have dialed the wrong number. So, I checked the UCF news release and dialed again, but I got the same phone sex hotline complete with offers I can't really post on this blog.

It turns out Leigh Torbin, UCF's new director of athletic communications, accidentally listed one digit incorrectly when he released the teleconference information and sent the media on an amusing detour. Torbin said he feels terrible about the error and set up another teleconference with O'Leary at noon Wednesday. "Today's scheduled call was not able to occur due to my own technical mistakes for which I deeply apologize," Torbin wrote at the end of the latest news release announcing the Wednesday teleconference.

Rowwwwwr. I'm not sure whether my reaction would be "GOOD ONE, GUYS!" and then pull a Farva on someone, or whether I would just quietly hang up the phone and never speak of that again. Probably the latter.

Or as Ryan Wilson pointed out, it could simply have been O'Leary breathing heavily on the other end of the line. And I can kind of picture him as a Paul-type anyway, so that kind of works.

Is there a limit on how long potshots can be taken at UCF Coach George O'Leary for lying on his resume for all of those years? I would like to think it expired, but when the same coach who spent years claiming to have degrees he didn't and cost himself the Notre Dame job is claiming he won't speak to the local media because of their errors, well it's hard not to dredge it all back to the forefront.

UCF Coach George O'Leary declined to answer questions from the Orlando Sentinel and barred his players from granting interviews with the newspaper during Conference USA media day on Sunday.

He also refused to speak with other reporters if a representative from the Sentinel was present at the UCF table during the only session for print reporters at media day.

O'Leary said last week he would not speak with the Sentinel until the newspaper corrected errors in its coverage of Ereck Plancher's death.

The newspaper has asked UCF officials to outline the mistakes, but the school has declined to discuss the errors in detail.

This should be a great source of mockery and humor. A coach refusing to talk to the media until they correct errors, yet not actually saying what the errors were. It would be, if the issue surrounding it wasn't the death of a 19-year old student.