As it happened: USF, UCF provide wildest game of the season

It doesn't get the hype of rivalry matchups involving Florida, Florida State, or Miami, but Friday's "War on I-4" contest between USF and UCF was undoubtedly the game of the year in the Sunshine State, if not the entire country.

The contest between the two American Athletic Conference programs offered a trip to the conference title game to the winner, and quickly erupted into a never-ending flow of highlights.

While the whole game was incredible, it was the final 2:30 that left UCF with the 49-42 win, and football fans with their mouths agape at what had just happened.

2:21 - Screen-pass perfection gives UCF 8-point lead

Scott Frost has made his name as an offensive genius, and the second-year UCF head coach showed exactly why with an absolutely perfect play call against an oncoming USF blitz. Sitting at the 23-yard line with a one-point lead, McKenzie Milton found Otis Anderson with a pinpoint screen pass, allowing the running back to do the rest and find the end zone. While it was a brilliant play, many people on Twitter immediately scolded Anderson for not going down at the 1-yard line and killing more clock.

For perhaps the first time in history, the Twitter mob would actually prove to be right, because ...

1:41 - Flowers tosses 83-yard bomb, USF ties game

After a holding penalty negated a 4-yard rush on the first play of the ensuing drive, USF faced the task of going 83 yards in 101 seconds to tie the game. It would take them one play. Quinton Flowers aired out a perfectly thrown ball to a wide-open Darnell Salomon for an incredible touchdown. After completing the two-point conversion, the game was inexplicably tied, and certainly destined for overtime - right?

Wrong.

1:28 - Hughes takes epic 95-yard return to the house

If you thought USF had responded quickly with its previous touchdown, UCF did it even better, not even needing to put the offense on the field. Mike Hughes took the kickoff back 95 yards through a maze of defenders to send the home crowd into a frenzy and put the Knights back in front for good.

With the win, UCF heads to the conference title game with an undefeated record in the regular season. This is particularly stunning because Frost inherited a team that went winless for an entire season in 2015. That means a large portion of the roster can now lay claim to a very unique distinction:

While UCF left the field hyped as hell with eyes on a bigger prize, nobody had a larger impact on the contest than Flowers. The USF star saved the best performance of his illustrious career for his last regular-season contest, breaking his own school record for total yards in a game. His final stat line is something from a video game, and not what you'd expect from a heated rivalry contest against one of the top defenses in the country:

Of course, we probably should have known we were in for a firecracker when this happened in the opening 1:08 of the contest: