The play was simply unanticipated, and undefended. Fifty-nine yards later, the Knights were sitting pretty with a first and goal at the Owl nine yard line, where they scored two plays later.

The collective karma on the Rice bench was like the air going out of a tire. Or more like a blowout. And from that point on, that’s exactly what this game turned out to be. Recall that the Owls scored TDs on their first four possessions against U of H last week. Well, UCF returned the favor by marching for a touchdown their first five possessions of this ball game.

Hardly makes for a competitive evening, does it?

"We let them take the momentum right from the first play, on that deep ball," Rice DB Travis Bradshaw (no, AP, not "Travis Davis") said afterwards. "We let them run with it the first half."

Thus, the seeming momentum – and at least the feeling of good cheer – that was attained by the previous week’s stirring victory over the University of Houston was gone with the wind, which swirled around all day so that it felt as if the Owls were going against it in all four quarters.

And run with it, UCF did, along with a liberal mixing of passing, mostly the short game, and a stifling defense that limited the Owls to only 65 yards’ total offense in a first half that saw the Knights take a 27-0 lead into the dressing room.

First time they had their hands on the ball, the Owls sent Sam McGuffie a couple of times  right into the middle of a couple of tons of beef, and he wound up with three yards for his efforts.

On third and seven, Nick Fanuzzi tried the short pass to hit his receiver at the first-down marker, but was swarmed under before he had chance to get the ball away. And to top things off, Kyle Martens’ ensuing punt was shanked and went for a total of 27 yards.

With the short field, UCF made short work of driving to their second consecutive touchdown, Ronnie Weaver plunging over from the Rice one yard line with 7:16 left in the quarter.

The Owl offense avoided total ignominy on their next possession, when, after another QB sack yielded up a third and 16, Nick was able to buy enough time to hit Vance McDonald for 29 yards and a first down in UCF territory. But the drive fizzled from there with first and second-down plunges into the line, and Rice once again punted out to the UCF 23.

Next commenced an excruciating 77-yard, 17-play drive where it appeared the Owls finally had the Knights stopped on at least a couple of situations, but where a third-and-17 was converted, courtesy the usual soft pass coverage that makes Owl fans hopeful when it’s third and three, but wince when it’s third and 13.

Once on that drive, Xavier Webb got a jump on a Godfrey pass in the flat, picked it off and had smooth sailing for a pick-six, but the officials had blown the play dead, they said, calling UCF for illegal procedure.

Just before the half, the Owl defenders put up a spirited defense as UCF drove goalwards, but with just over a minute left, and fourth and goal from the three UCF Coach O’Leary eschewed the sure field goal in order simply to make a statement, which, more or less, if translated into printable English, would read, "We can score on you however we want, whenever we want."

Actually, he called time out to send in a passing play whereby QB Godfrey, under a heavy rush, managed to get the ball to a wide-open tight end Adam Nissley for the score. The book would’ve said just take the three points, but, hey, this is football, not tiddly-winks.

And when the Owls came out with the initial possession of the second half, the results improved not at all. You know the dance: two futile dives into the line, and then a smothering of the quarterback on third down in a clear passing situation.

Only this time the ending was even worse, as Nick was stripped of the ball as he went down in a horde of onrushing UCF defensive linemen, and suddenly the Knights were set up with a very, very short field with first down at the Rice 15.

Credit the Rice defense that it took the Knights five plays to punch it in from there –plus a first-down rendering pass interference call against the Owls that just wasn’t a foul -- but punch it in they did, as Ronnie Weaver got his third rushing touchdown of the day, scoring from two yards out, barely four minutes into the third quarter.

It was at this time, however, that the Rice offense woke up from its slumber, or otherwise found a way to evade, rather than run right smack into, the Mongol hordes from the steppes of central Florida -- or Miami, or wherever they come from.

For Nick Fanuzzi proceeded expertly to engineer a ten-play, 80-yard drive to finally put the Owls on the scoreboard – just like the first half of the week before, against U of H.

It started when Andy Erickson accepted a touchback on the ensuing kickof, which, given the intensity of the Knights’ kickoff team’s rush, appeared to be the better part of valor.

This time, not so much, however. Luke Willson got 15 more on the next play with a well-executed sideline pass and run.

It looked as if the Owls had scored on third and 12 when Nick hit Luke again on the visitors’ sideline as his momentum, aided by a UCF tackler, carried him out of bounds as he reached for the pylon.

It looked as if he had scored – Pat Randolph certainly thought he did, raising both arms as it to signal "TD" as he came right on top of the play. But the striped shirts begged to differ, and instead gave the Owls the ball, first and goal from the six-inch line.

Man, those guys have good eyesight.

Rice proceeded to incur two, straight illegal procedure penalties via alleged jumps of offensive linemen – heck, they have tse-tse flies down there in central Florida, ref, he was just swattin’ one.

To add insult to injury, UCF defender Troy Davis got another sack on Nick Fanuzzi on second down and goal from the 11, and that put the Owls at third and 16 for the score. Oh well, at least we’ll break the shutout, went the thought, as the distance was well within place-kicker Chris Boswell’s field goal range.

But finally the Owl offense put it all together in one play. The line blocked out, Nick dropped back, and Sam McGuffie, bless him, ran the wheel route and split two UCF defenders five yards deep in the end zone. He leapt acrobatically between the two of them (how does he ever leap but acrobatically?) and gathered in the ball just before he went out of bounds, and the Owls finally were on the scoreboard at 34-7 with 5:16 left in the third quarter.

The worm promised to turn a bit more on the Knights’ next possession, as on second and nine, Godfrey threw into a crowd at midfield and Travis Bradshaw stepped right into the ball and intercepted it with a thud in his breadbasket,   returning it eight yards to the UCF 42.

Amazingly, that was the first interception of Travis’ very active career, and it gave Rice a short field to operate from for once. But, alas, old habits set in, the running game failed to produce, the ritual third-and-long sack-rifice took place, and the Owls had to wind up punting from midfield.

An exchange of possessions managed to push the Knights to the lip of their own goal, as Taylor Cook spelled Nick Fanuzzi, but couldn’t get the Owls going on his first series. Kyle Martens’ punt was downed by Xavier Webb at the UCF two yard line, though, so it appeared that the Knights would have to really earn their next one.

It appeared that George O’Leary might have called off the dogs when he immediately put in backup quarterback L. D. Crow, a transfer from Stanford. The UCF offensive minds had different ideas, though.

Crow bobbled the first snap, leaving the pill on the floor and barely snatching it away from a couple of grasping Owl down linemen, thus avoiding embarrassment by giving the Owls a really, really, really short field – like six inches.

But he shortly thereafter made up for it by finding his receiver Brian Watters for 16 yards on third and nine, keeping the possession alive. From there, Crow proceeded to air the ball out, hitting his receivers four out of five times en route to a 98-yard, nine play touchdown drive.

The final play of that drive, and perhaps the Owls’ final and most galling insult of the day, occurred on fourth and four from the Rice 41. Instead of sending in the punting unit, O’Leary called timeout for a strategy session.

Next play, trying for first down yardage, Crow hit his slotback Ricky Kay a couple of yards downfield, where he juked Owl defender and suddenly was in the clear, outracing the rest of the Rice secondary to the end zone.

That ending the scoring for UCF, but it was mop-up time, and the Rice coaches sent in the erstwhile lost sheep, reserve QB Taylor Cook, to do the mopping.

His first pass very nearly went for the same kind of pick-six that he threw in the Northwestern game, but the UCF defender failed complete the wrap, and from there on out, Taylor Cook was nails, adroitly taking the Rice offense down the field.

Rice got as far as the UCF 41, where they faced third down and long, but Taylor dropped back and flung a perfect pass to Derek Clark at the UCF two yard line, hauled in by the rookie back just as his body hit the turf. It was one of two Rice offensive plays of the day that might have been classified, "thing of beauty" – the other being Sam McGuffie’s 16-yard touchdown reception.

Jeremy Eddington bulled in from the one to make it 41-14, and that’s as far back as the Owls were able to come.

Rice  failed to take advantage of one more chance to make the final score closer than the game actually was, when a hustling deep snapper Brandon Long recovered a muffed punt on the Rice 45.  But this time the Rice offense, again under Taylor Cook, started, but couldn't finish, turning the ball back over to the Knights when Charles Ross lost two on fourth and two.

And that’s how the evening ended for the reeling Owls, who now get the luxury of an off-week before their next contest Nov. 6, again on the road at Tulsa.

And put this in your hash pipe and smoke it – of the Owls’ remaining opponents, once considered the ‘easy’ part of the schedule, Tulane just popped it to UTEP in El Paso, 34-24, and UAB took number 24 Mississippi state to the final seconds before losing in Starkville, 29-24.