There has been a lot of talk coming from No. 12 UCF ahead of its Peach Bowl matchup with No. 7 Auburn.

The Knights have had no problem giving the Tigers bulletin board material — that much is apparent.

Scott Frost made it known earlier in the week that he believes UCF is further ahead of Auburn in terms of preparation. And of course, there were running back Adrian Killins’ recent comments about the Tigers being in for a “rude awakening.”

Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn responded to the trash talk, according to a report from AL.com on Friday.

“We worry about ourself,” Malzahn said. “We’ve got a lot of respect for those guys. I’ve got a lot of respect for their head coach; he’s a very good head coach. They’re the only undefeated team in college football.

“(I) don’t get to much into that. Their head coach probably got asked was he distracted from taking that (Nebraska) job and his defense mechanism probably came back like that. But I got a lot of respect for him and he’ll have his team ready. They do have some speed, so we’ll see who wins. But I know our team; I’m worried about our team and our team’s worried about us and we just need to be prepared and we need to play well.”

Malzahn might not want to publicly say anything out of line, but it’s easy sense the confidence in his comments. That line about Frost’s “defense mechanism” is pretty good.

The Tigers and their coach may be focused on themselves, but chances are, they’re also ready to shut UCF up.

Auburn and UCF kick off at 12:30 p.m. ET on Jan. 1. The game will be televised on ESPN.