Here’s what we learned in UCF’s season-opening football game.

A year after going 13-0 as the only unbeaten Football Bowl Subdivision team, the University of Central Florida ushered in the Josh Heupel era much the same way the Knights played during the Scott Frost era.

Consequently, UCF routed Connecticut 56-17 to begin the 2018 season with a win and extend the nation’s longest winning streak to 14 games.

Here’s what we learned about UCF in its win:

UCFast

Any trepidation concerning UCF’s offense slowing down under Heupel compared to last season under Frost was laid to rest early into Thursday night’s game. The Knights were exquisitely fast with their up-tempo offense.

UCF averaged roughly 2 minutes, 12 seconds on its eight touchdown drives, which included four scoring drives of six plays or fewer.

Heisman Trophy hopeful quarterback McKenzie Milton, who flourished under Frost as a sophomore in 2017 despite not being a highly-touted recruit out of Hawaii, paced the Knights with 346 yards and five touchdown passes.

Receiver drop-off? Nope

UCF’s receiving corps. took a hit following the 2017 season when Tre’Quan Smith and Jordan Akins departed for the NFL. They represented two of UCF’s top three receivers last season.

However, Dredrick Snelson is back this season and two new faces — Gabriel Davis and Ole Miss transfer Tre Nixon — showed there’s no drop-off in the receiving game this season. The trio caught 17 of Milton’s 24 completions. Nixon caught five of his seven targets for a team-high 101 yards and two touchdowns.

The sure-handedn receivers led Milton, who was laser-like efficient with only eight incomplete passes, to a 217.4 quarterback rating.

Opportunistic defense

The Knights pounced on defense whenever they could. They recovered two fumbles, had an interception and stopped UConn on downs two other times. The three turnovers resulted in 14 points for UCF.

Free safety Richie Grant had the pick and a fumble recovery. Nate Evans recovered the other one.

Middle linebacker Pat Jasinski, who led UCF in tackles last season, had a game-high 11 tackles against UConn.

He also broke up a pass to force one turnover on downs.

Defensive X-factor

Last year’s ball-hawking defensive back, Kyle Gibson, was forced to miss the first half due to a targeting penalty he was flagged for in the Peach Bowl victory over Auburn to close out the 2017 season.

Gibson, though, played the second half and made an immediate impact. Gibson stymied UConn quarterback David Pindell for a 4-yard loss on a 3rd-and-2 play on the Huskies’ opening second half possession.

The very next play resulted in Jasinski’s pass breakup to force a turnover on downs.

The two are keys to UCF’s defense this season. Gibson, who led the Knights in interceptions last year, nearly began his 2018 season with an interception. However, he couldn’t corral an errant Pindell pass in the second half.

Missed tackling

If there was any negative to a resounding opening victory for the Knights, it was the defense struggling to tackle during UConn’s two first-half scoring drives. One resulted in a touchdown, the other was a field goal.

Pindell’s dual-threat nature wasn’t easy to defend. His shiftiness made it tough on UCF to bring down routinely.

UCF’s defense allowing yards after contact wasn’t a big deal against an overmatched UConn team. But for a Knights team looking to repeat what they did in 2017 and really force the College Football Playoff committee’s hand to take a hard look at UCF, the Knights are going to have to be more precise tackling.

Otherwise, the better teams will take advantage.

Overall, UCF had little trouble in any facet against UConn.

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