Two Big 12 programs coming off ugly seasons close out the year in Boulder, both leaning on brand-new starting quarterbacks to prove last year was the outlier.
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FRI NOV 27 · 11:00 PM CT
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UCF
Colorado
This one's a proving-ground game at the most important position on the field. UCF handed the keys to Alonza Barnett III, a James Madison transfer Scott Frost called "a winner and a proven winner," brought in specifically to replace Tayven Jackson after he hit the portal. Colorado, meanwhile, is finally letting Julian Lewis run the show after the former 5-star sat behind Kaidon Salter for most of 2025. Both guys are new to the job. Neither has had to do it against this level of competition for a full season.
Frost knows what a fast turnaround looks like at UCF — he inherited a winless team in 2015 and had it undefeated two years later. He's hoping the 31-man transfer class, built around older, proven players rather than upside projects, gets the Knights bowling again after back-to-back misses. Colorado's got its own reset in motion: OC Pat Shurmur is out, replaced by Brennan Marion and his uptempo "Go-Go" scheme, which is as much a bet on scheme fixing an offense that went 0-17 under Deion Sanders whenever it didn't hit 24 points as it is a bet on Lewis himself.
Sanders isn't hiding from where his program sits. He came out of Big 12 Media Days blunt about it — "we better win" — after a 3-9 finish that ranked Colorado 15th in the conference. That's the backdrop for a Friday night game that, this deep into November, could mean plenty for bowl math on either side depending on how the fall breaks.
UCF Knights
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Colorado Buffaloes
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
UCF Knights
Colorado Buffaloes
UCF's swing in 2025 tells you what this team is capable of and what still trips it up: Frost's group opened 3-0 before dropping four of its final five, the kind of finish that keeps a roster out of a bowl game even with a better record than the year before. If Barnett stabilizes things the way JMU saw from him, UCF has the look of a team that closes better than it opens for once.
Colorado's issue was never really about talent evaluation — it was about answers at quarterback. Salter's departure for the NFL Draft removes the incumbent, for better or worse, and hands Lewis a full runway. A redshirt freshman with WOW recruiting hype getting his first real extended run, on a rebuilt offensive staff, on the road-heavy back half of a Big 12 slate, is exactly the kind of variable that makes late-November games like this one genuinely hard to project.
