Houston rallies for comeback victory over UCF in front of a painfully sparse home crowd

Typically, being a top-25 team in the nation makes your home games a hot ticket, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the Houston Cougars.

In fact, not even special space-themed helmets could put butts in seats on Saturday when the UCF Knights came to town.

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The 3-1 Cougars entered the week ranked No. 20 and had to face a UCF team coming off a solid win over TCU. On top of that, Houston brought out special space-themed helmets.

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The Houston Cougars hosted the UCF Knights on Saturday, but the only thing anyone was talking aobut just before kickoff was the lackluster turnout. (Photo by Austin McAfee/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Fitting, since both Houston and Orlando have major ties to the U.S. space program.

UCF has been doing this for a decade, but it's still cool.

But it was going to take more than that to get fans to fork over their hard-earned money. TDECU Stadium was so empty, a tumbleweed could have blown across one of the end zones.

Not a stellar look, but ticket sales don't add points.

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The first half was all UCF, with the Knights taking a 10-0 lead to the locker room at halftime, helped by the fact that the Cougars had several drives stall out in the red zone.

The Knights added another touchdown in the third quarter, but things changed once Houston found their running game.

Houston's Conner Weigman monster second half in which he had three rushing touchdowns helped the Cougars pull of a come-from-behind win. (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)

QB Conner Weigman delivered three rushing touchdowns in the second half for 21 unanswered points that put the Cougars on top, and that's where they stayed to win this one 24-17.

The win brings Houston to 1-1 in conference play and keeps their hopes of contending in the Big 12 alive.

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Next week, the Cougars will hit the road to take on Kansas State. If that goes well, perhaps more fans will be in the seats when Oklahoma State comes to town the following week.