Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Acrisure Bounce House, Orlando, FL

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UCF -3½ over Arizona State

5:30 PM EST. Arizona State's Friday was a disaster before the Sun Devils ever left the ground. They boarded, they sat, they got sent home, and they climbed back on a plane Saturday morning, landing in Orlando around noon for a 5:30 kickoff. That's not a travel day, that's a fire drill, and the whole prep week went with it. The number has already crept from 2½ to 3½ on the news, and we still don't think it prices what the Sun Devils went through.

The other side of this one is a quarterback story, and it's all going UCF's way. Alonza Barnett III was the whole blueprint for Scott Frost this season, the James Madison transfer and last year's Sun Belt Player of the Year, and a hamstring pull at Pitt in September cost him half the campaign. He came back last week at Kansas and reminded everybody what the fuss was about, blowing a 19-point lead and then winning the damn game anyway with a 73-yard drive in the final minute, capped by a touchdown in the dying seconds that snapped a 12-game road skid. The Knights have made a habit of this lately, the double-overtime stunner over No. 2 BYU and now Kansas, and getting their quarterback back is the difference between a team hoping to hang around and a team that expects to win late.

Arizona State, meanwhile, is asking a true freshman to do the hardest job in the sport under the worst conditions of the season. Jake Fette took over when Mikey Keene went down with a knee injury at Kansas State, and to his credit he hasn't looked lost, throwing one touchdown and catching another in last week's 20-10 win over Colorado. But that was at home, with a normal week, and the offense still managed three points after halftime while the Buffs clawed back into it. This week he gets a cross-country trip that fell apart, a noon arrival, a hostile building, and his third career start. Freshmen don't need extra help losing on the road. Friday gave UCF all the help it needed.

The stakes cut the home team's way, too. A win makes UCF bowl eligible for the first time since 2023, and it puts Frost one step from his first winning season since that unbeaten run in 2017. At home, with his quarterback back, against a travel-wrecked team starting a freshman, we'll happily lay a field goal and a hook when everything lines up on one side like this. The circumstances say the gap is bigger than the number.

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