FIU went 4-8 last year and fired their head coach and they bring in Butch Davis who has a long history of winning in the state of Florida.  He is smart enough to join a team with plenty of experience as FIU is the #5 ranked team in experience and they return 15 starters including a veteran QB who gets all of his receivers back in Alex McGough.  McGouh had a really good Sophomore campaign completing 64% of his passes 21TDs to just 8 interceptions, but 2016 he was fighting through injuries and had 13 TDâ??s to just 11 interceptions.  I think he has a huge year as a senior.   

Defensively this team brings back 81% of their tackles and are very strong at the linebacker spot with Wint and Williams.  Davis also brought in eight 3 star guys on the defense in his first year so the future looks bright.  FIU did struggle 53-14 against UCF last year, but the year before they beat them 15-14.  I think the score from the year before has this spread off by nearly a TD which shows me enough value to pull the trigger, but before we finalize things letâ??s take a look at Central Florida.

UCF, improved drastically last year in Scott Frostâ??s first year after going 0-12 in 2015 they went 6-7, but all 6 wins came against teams not in the top 80.  0-6 vs. teams not in the top 80 as they were -16ppg in those games.  In reality Conference USA is not far off from the American Athletic as they have gone 10-11 overall and 4-0 in bowl games against AAC.  FIU really needs this game and with UCF only returning 4 starters I see their defense taking a step back.  UCFâ??s offense which was supposed to do great things under Frost will likely be better, but how big of a jump can they make?   They ranked 117th in S&P last year and their QB Mckenzie Milton has not really impressed me too much. 

A reminder with FIU who suffered huge injuries the last two years.  This was a team that was leading Indiana 13-12 to start the 4th quarter before losing 34-13.  UCF has bigger games on their radar with their next 3 games being against Memphis, Maryland and Georgia Tech.