Central Florida avenged its loss to Florida State in a big way Saturday, pounding the Seminoles 40-13.

The Golden Knights lost 26-22 to FSU Feb. 4^th after beating the ‘Noles en route to a Florida Cup finals appearance last fall. UCF actually started the South Independent season 0-2, losing to South Florida 13-0 Jan. 28^th. The Golden Knights also beat USF in the fall.

“It was humbling. We did well in the fall semester, and we basically said to ourselves we’re a great team, so on and so forth,” said UCF’s Jason Ross.

“And when we lost to both USF and FSU, it became a big thing, like we have to get our (game) straight, or we’re going to have big problems this season.”

UCF then reeled off three consecutive wins, including one over South Florida. With the win over Florida State, UCF improved to 4-2 and put itself back in the playoff hunt.

“We knew when we went into this game we had to win if we wanted to get into the playoffs, said Ross. “If we didn’t win, we were going to have to wait and see how we did on the point differential. So we knew we had to win.”

UCF still has two games left, against Florida International and Florida Atlantic, and USF and FSU still have to play each other. But without a win against the ‘Noles, UCF’s playoff hopes would have been bleak.

The top two teams in the SIRC South will crossover against the top two from the North in a four-team playoff to decide the conference's champion.