St. Petersburg Bowl
St. Petersburg Bowl Saturday night in Tropicana Field, the 8-4 Central Florida Knights face-off against the 8-4 Rutgers Scarlet Knights in the St. Petersburg Bowl.

This will be the fifth consecutive season that the Scarlet Knights have been able to reach a bowl game, but for Rutgers it is definitely not enough just to be here. UCF is happy to be back in the post-season after sitting out of a bowl game last year.

NCAA odds makers see this one as being extremely close as the spread is sitting at less than a field goal. The line in Vegas is at, Rutgers -2.5 with the total in the game set at 44.

The Scarlet Knights will try to make it four bowl victories in a row when they face the Knights for the first time in the St. Petersburg, FL on Saturday night.

For Rutgers fans, anything less would be unexceptable at this point and they want much more than St. Petersburg
Bowl appearances.

"I think people need to take a deep breath and realize that, there's a lot of football teams in this country that would like to go to five straight bowl games. Some would call it not at the level they expect and I apologize for that," said Rutger coach Greg Schiano. "The reality is five straight bowls is five straight bowls. We're going to get to the top, but this is part of the process."

UFC boasts one of the best defenses in the country against the run. The Knights are ranked fourth in the nation in rush defense giving up just 82.5 yards per game.

Coach George O'Leary hopes making it to St. Petersburg will be a stepping stone to UCF becoming a postseason regular. This will be somewaht of a home game for the Knight as they play there home games just about 100 miles away in Orlando.

Look for the Knights to play well with the crowd on their side. Take UCF getting the points in this one.