Hail Mary TD pass for win gives UCF a share of the AAC title (GIF)
Central Florida got a share of the American Athletic Conference with an improbable 32-30 win over East Carolina, thanks to a Hail Mary pass from Justin Holman to Breshad Perriman.
UCF got the ball with 10 seconds left and completed a 14-yard pass on the first play. The second play was this bomb to Perriman, who scored the winning touchdown with no time left on the clock.
If you look closely, ECU's DaShaun Amos, who was originally defending Perriman, appears to unbuckle his helmet as the ball is still in the air.
No. 39 was unbuckling his helmet while the ball was still in the air. What the what???? pic.twitter.com/tB2fxncy3t
— Ryan Greene (@ryanmgreene) December 5, 2014
The Knights had turned the ball over on downs with one timeout remaining and 1:47 left on the clock. The comeback win for ECU was pretty much a done deal, right? Wrong.
After East Carolina kneeled the ball down twice, UCF called its timeout with 1:02 left. After a running play and an ECU timeout as the play clock ran to zero before fourth down, ECU QB Shane Carden took a sack on the Pirates' last offensive play as he tried to run more time off the clock.
However, he lost 11 yards in the process and only took six seconds off the clock, setting up Central Florida's game-winning drive.
UCF was up at one point 26-9 after a fourth field goal by Shawn Moffitt. But ECU scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter and took the lead with 2:17 to go when Carden hit Justin Hardy, the all-time leader in receptions at the FBS level, for a 13-yard touchdown.
WIth the win, UCF moves to 7-1 in the AAC and is tied with Memphis at the top of the standings. Because the conference has 11 teams, it does not have a conference championship game. And with eight conference games, not everyone plays each other. Memphis and UCF didn't meet in the regular season.
Cincinnati, 6-1, has a chance to move to 7-1 on Saturday and join the party at the top of the standings with a win against Houston. The Bearcats didn't play UCF during conference play and lost to Memphis. Per the rules for the conference, if more than one team has the same winning percentage, the teams are declared co-champions.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
