Orlando, FL (AP) \u2014 UCF’s Tayven Jackson threw for 223 yards and scored a passing and rushing touchdown to guide UCF to a 34-9 victory over North Carolina.<\/p>\n
The Knights were mostly methodical throughout the game, with three touchdown drives of longer than five minutes. But they scored a critical touchdown on a 64-second, six-play, 83-yard drive to close the second half when Jackson found Kylan Fox for an 18-yard score.<\/p>\n
After forcing a punt to open the third quarter, the Knights scored on a short run from Myles Montgomery to take a 24-point lead and coasted to the finish, getting a rushing touchdown from Jaden Nixon on the team’s final drive with less than two minutes left.<\/p>\n
The Tar Heels could not respond to the Knights’ long drives.<\/p>\n
UNC quarterback Gio Lopez struggled with 11-for-14 passing and 87 yards. The Tar Heels tallied only 217 yards. The Knights had 366.<\/p>\n
UCF forced two interceptions in the first half, picking off Lopez on a deflected pass at the line by Horace Lockett that was snagged by defensive end Nyjalik Kelly. They also got a second deflected pass when Jayden Bellamy tipped a pass to Braeden Marshall to stop a deep North Carolina drive.<\/p>\n
Lopez left the game in the third quarter with an apparent right leg injury after he was tackled on a fourth-down conversion. Lopez left the field in a cart after an extended time in the medical tent.<\/p>\n
Max Johnson took over, finishing the drive with a touchdown throw to Nathan Leacock late in the third quarter. He had 67 yards on 11-for-19 passing to go with his touchdown.<\/p>\n
The Takeaway<\/p>\n
North Carolina: The Tar Heels struggled in their second matchup with a Big 12 opponent after a 48-14 loss to TCU in Week One. They likely will need to switch to senior backup quarterback Max Johnson moving forward.<\/p>\n
UCF: The Knights have firmly established their quarterback as Jackson took over for the second straight game and led UCF to a comfortable win.<\/p>\n
Up Next<\/p>\n
North Carolina has a bye week next week before opening ACC play at home against Clemson on Oct. 4.<\/p>\n
UCF travels to Kansas next week to open Big 12 play.<\/p>\n
More On This<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Philip Rossman-Reich, Associated Press Orlando, FL (AP) \u2014 UCF’s Tayven Jackson threw for 223 yards and scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1607,74529,99,102483,26977],"class_list":["post-171018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-college-football","tag-gio-lopez","tag-sports","tag-ucf-sports","tag-unc-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}