Flowers, Milton share AAC’s weekly offensive honor

After standing nearly throw-to-throw with each other for 60 minutes, Bulls QB Quinton Flowers and UCF counterpart McKenzie Milton had combined for 1,034 total yards in Friday's "War on I-4."

So in determining its final Offensive Player of the Week honor for 2017, the American Athletic Conference made what many deemed the only logical choice.

It picked both of them.

Flowers set a new school single-game record with 503 passing yards, and eclipsed his own school single-game mark with 605 total yards in the Bulls' 49-42 loss.

In three career starts against the Knights (two of them victories), Flowers went 55-of-92 for 831 yards, seven touchdowns and one interception; while running for 341 yards and five TDs.

When asked where Flowers ranks among all the college quarterbacks he has faced, Knights OLB Shaquem Griffin said, "Quinton's No. 1 in my book."

"I mean, he's an awesome quarterback. I think people don't give him enough (credit), to be honest. He can run, he can throw, he can make good decisions. He can make a defense turn all eyes to him when it's in the middle of a play, and when you've got a quarterback like that, that's a threat."

Milton finished 29-of-44 for 373 yards, four TDs and one interception Friday, and ran for 56 yards and a TD on 11 carries. He now ranks second in the nation in completion percentage (69.1), passing efficiency (182.9) and yards per attempt (10.32), and is the odds-on favorite to win the AAC's Offensive Player of the Year award.

As for the special teams player of the week? That went to Knights junior Mike Hughes, whose 95-yard kick-return TD with 88 seconds remaining likely will remain embedded in the collective psyche of Bulls fans for the rest of the century.