This is the Depth Dossier: the UCF Knights, Week 9.

UCF's offensive line turned what should've been a big follow-up week into a total collapse, and the final score, a 41 to 9 loss to Baylor, barely tells the story of how bad it was.

A week after the biggest win of the Josh Frost era over BYU, the Knights didn't pick up a first down until midway through the second quarter. They finished two for fifteen on third down, didn't convert any of their three fourth-down tries, and managed just 66 rushing yards on 30 carries. The offensive line allowed seven sacks. Quarterback Keyone Jenkins struggled all night before leaving in the third quarter with a lower-leg injury. Alonza Barnett the third, back from a hamstring injury that had kept him out five games, came in and couldn't turn things around, though he did hit wide receiver Josh Derry for a 67-yard touchdown. The one thing UCF fans will want to remember is kicker Will Stone's record-setting 57-yard field goal.

Let's dig into why this one got so lopsided.

That two for fifteen number on third down explains basically everything else that went wrong. When you convert that rarely, your defense is stuck on the field, and UCF's defense played 67 snaps and gave up 503 yards. Linebacker Jahleel Culbreath led the team with nine tackles just trying to keep the score respectable.

The pressure up front was the real story on offense. Seven sacks is a total collapse for the offensive line, and it's also what dragged the running game down to just over two yards a carry. That same pressure is what chased Jenkins into the hit that ended his night.

A few other things worth mentioning. Barnett's first drive back from his hamstring injury produced that 67-yard touchdown to Derry, the only truly explosive play UCF had all night, and then the line gave him nothing else to work with. Stone made all three of his field goal tries, capped by that record 57-yarder right before halftime. And analysts pointed out this had every sign of a classic trap game, a short week, a Friday night road trip, and a Baylor team playing with newfound energy under interim head coach Joe Klanderman after Dave Aranda's firing.

Now to the depth chart, and the headline here is simple. Barnett is the starter going forward. Jenkins' lower-leg injury, combined with the coaching staff's decision, hands him the job, though it's worth watching how his own health holds up given he was just back from his own injury.

Up front, the defensive line keeps reshuffling. Jeffson Lafontant is now playing around half the snaps, Ken Talley and Trenton Turner have moved into regular rotation, and Horace Lockett and Isaiah Nixon are seeing more time too. Anthony Coaxum has faded into a reserve role. This group has absorbed snaps all season long and just keeps getting deeper, even in a game where the front seven got dominated on the other side of the ball.

Linebacker and the secondary went the other way. Tackett Curtis, Culbreath, and Jayden Jennings all saw their roles shrink at linebacker, and defensive back Jayden Williams dropped to a smaller share in the secondary. No one was reported stepping up to fill those snaps, so that's still an open question.

Next week against Kansas, the big questions are obvious. Can Barnett hold up behind a line that just allowed seven sacks? And is Jenkins' leg injury serious enough to make this a real quarterback change, rather than just a one-week fill-in?

This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.