The College Football Playoff National Championship will be played next Monday, but the nation’s one true champion is already wearing its crown. It’s on the internet. It has to be true.
The screenshot above comes from UCFKnights.com, the official website of the University of Central Florida’s athletics department, and proclaims UCF national champions as “The Only 2017 Undefeated Champion.” They plan to celebrate their title this weekend with a parade.
Part of their claim is absolute fact. UCF was the only FBS team to survive the entire season without a loss. As for the first part, it’s not quite as laughable as you might think.
There is a legitimate case to be made that they should have taken the no. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff. Following the Peach Bowl win over Auburn, they now have a win over a team that beat both of next Monday’s finalists.
Instead, the Knights were left out of the playoff field by a committee that clearly never had any intention of even considering them. Unbeaten UCF placed 12th in the final Playoff rankings, behind a three-loss Auburn team, a Miami team on a two-game losing streak, and just one spot ahead of a Stanford team with four losses.
If the Playoff Committee had any foresight, this would have been a perfect year to place a non-Power 5 team in the field. There was not a clear-cut no. 4 seed, and they’re going to have to do it at some point or risk either litigation or the “Group of 5” simply splitting off into a separate division.
Putting UCF in this year would have solved that. It also would have prevented the national title game from turning into an intra-conference snoozefest that may largely get ignored outside of the ‘Beetus Belt.
The case for UCF went beyond just charity and self-interest. Scott Frost’s team entered Selection Sunday with a resume that included a win over the #15 team in the S&P+ rankings (USF), and a pair of wins over the #20 team (Memphis). UCF won by 7 in the AAC championship game and 27 back in September. Alabama’s best regular season wins by S&P+ were over #21 LSU, #24 Fresno State, and #28 Mississippi State. No division title, no conference championship.
Instead, the commitee gave Alabama its customary auto-bid, and then watched as the Knights beat the team that just beat the Tide. How’s that for “passing the eye test?”
It’s easy to say that everyone “knows” that UCF would have gotten crushed by Clemson in the Sugar Bowl. Everyone “knew” that Miami was going to beat Ohio State in 2002, just like they “knew” Alabama was going to do the same in 2014. The Tide were considered “unbeatable” in 2016, which was true right up until the moment they got beaten.
It’s college football. Sometimes an FCS team beats a preseason no. 5 in Ann Arbor. Sometimes the Iron Bowl gets settled on a Kick-Six. Sometimes a MAC team wins in Ann Arbor. Heck, Ohio State tight ends caught seven touchdowns this season. Anything is possible.
UCF absolutely could have gotten crushed by Clemson. The Knights’ defense was somewhere between “not great” and “Nebraska” this year, and Clemson’s defensive line very likely would have overwhelmed the UCF offense. But they earned a chance to find out, and weren’t given it.
Early next Tuesday morning, one team is going to be holding a trophy up in the air in Atlanta. That team will have two wins over top-4 teams in the last week, and own the best resume in the nation. They will be the national champions. UCF won’t.
But if you’re a school that is clearly never going to get a shot to show that you belong on that field, why not stick your finger in the Playoff Committee’s eye when you have the opportunity?
Good for UCF. Sell your t-shirts and hats and celebrate your season. And don’t worry. It’s not like Alabama fans can get mad about a school inventing national championships.
James makes a good point – look at the facts. ESPN does an amazing job influencing reasonably smart people across America with their SEC bias. ESPN affects the point spreads and the ratings. People don’t even realize how much.
So let’s look at the facts:
The “little guys” have played in 11 major bowl games vs the Power Five teams during the past 14 years. I’ll bet all of you who expressed your opinions that UCF would not have had a chance vs Clemson and the other playoff teams would be way off guessing the actual on-the-field results of the little guys in these 11 major bowl games. They won 8 out of 11 games. These include wins over #4 Bama, #4 Wisky, #6 Baylor (by UCF), #7 Oklahoma, #7 Auburn and #9 FSU.
8 & 3! And #8 Wisky had a tough time beating W. Michigan last year. Let’s compare the little guys 8 & 3 record vs some of the powerhouses. Here are their records the past 20 years in major bowl games. Ohio State 10 & 5, USC 7 & 2 (mostly at home in the Rose Bowl), Oklahoma 5 & 7, Florida State 4 & 7, Alabama 6 & 5 (vs non-SEC teams), Oregon 4 & 3, Notre Dame 0 & 5, meeshigan 2 & 4 (sorry – had to include those last two).
Compared to the best of the best powerhouse teams, the little guys have a better record than most, if not all. And do you think the CFP Committee has these facts spoon fed to them by their assistants? I would hope so, but maybe they are too lazy to do actual research, like some of you guys spouting your uninformed opinions. If they knew the facts, and still didn’t give UCF the 4th spot that nobody else deserved, that’s a pretty sad commentary that it’s all about the money. If they didn’t know the facts, that’s a pretty sad statement as well.
Based on the facts, UCF is clearly the Undisputed National Champions this year.
BINGO Terry Williams. Those little things called facts, certainly ARE a pesky little nuisance for the narratives people want to publish.
You also hit the nerve of those against the little guys…………they simply don’t do the research to know the facts. They PRESUME and make ASSUMPTIONS that the talking heads know what they’re talking about. Evidence PROVES they don’t do ANY research beyond their supposition. In other words. They have an agenda. and, you can bet your last dollar that it’s ENTIRELY based on money and control, not reality.or fairness, or getting it right.
YEP. UCF is this years National Champion…………..and they earned it on the field, not an accounting office, which is the only place Alabama or Georgia can win it.
@ James Mills…Happy New Year friend! Its good to read comments from someone who is more than a fan of the Buckeyes….someone who is an actual fan of football! I agree that “selection committee” is a joke and has damaged more than enhanced a true playoff system.
UCF had a great year period. What they did was not replicated by any other team. Whisky had a chance but was soundly defeated by the Buckeyes. Ok, Bama, Georgia, and Clemson all had at least one loss. Forget this strength of schedule talk….Bama pads their schedule every year and has never played a non conference opponent on a neutral field.
Sadly we are stuck with a broken system.
You are right Kelly, but, apparently we live in an era stuck on opinion over what is real. A really weird thing happened in my life to base final thoughts on results over opinion. As a Grad Student I was away from home trying to work myself through Ohio State. I would take any odd job I could find to help live off Campus and also have enough to pay for my education without getting a loan. In late 89 I got picked up to help lay carpet in the Franklin County and surrounding area by Bill Douglas. I had no idea when hired that I was working with the future Heavyweight Champion of the World. Bill told me I should stop listening to the (as he called them) “opinionators” and put some money on his kid, Buster. I wasn’t about to do that! Well until the last week before they headed over to Tokyo after lugging miles of carpet around with him and hearing his determination. I bet some savings, money I had scraped away for books, my last paycheck, and my months rent on Buster. Best damned advice I EVER got. Ignore the “opinionators” and go with what you know to be true, based on what results you see. I saw Buster go from an out shape, but pretty decent fighter with doubts about his future, to guy who worked his backside off to get ready both mentally and physically. Echoes of Francis Schmidt played in my head. They put their pants on the same as we do. One leg at a time. It proved true when Buster took a dump down Mike Tyson’s throat. Opinions are opinions. Facts are facts. That holds true for UCF. They earned the right to be in the final 4 and I’ll be damned if I shake my head over them crowning themselves National Champs. BOTH of the teams playing in the who gives a damn Bowl lost to the team who they just beat, both physically and mentally. Those aren’t opinions they’re indisputable facts.
Moral of the story……….Stay alert to the opinionators, they almost always have an agenda, and if you stake your future on those opinions compared to actual results, you could be paying student loans for an eternity! Sure. Listen to the chatter, but in the end, always go with what you know to be true. Opinionators have THEIR best interests to the forefront. Not yours.
The playoff system is worse than even the BCS. It’s made up of fewer actual schools which have a say so in determining the “MYTHICAL” National Champion. Gone are the multitudes of often biased, but at least football centric, views of people picking and choosing COMBINED with hard data. While biased at least there was some substance behind their decisions. The playoff system is a clown show. PERIOD. There is no National Champion crowned, regardless of what the idiots and complete morons pushing pens, pressing keys, and yodeling from talking heads in front of camera’s. The CFP Committee is skewed with regional jokers with TINY football knowledge and filled with more bias and idiocy than the breadth of coaches and writers altogether. THAT’S FRIGHTENING to consider that, that joke of a committee is determining from what to eat, who will cook it, to choosing 4 teams to enter a playoff. It’s doubtful those morons should be allowed to pick a damned breakfast cereal (yes that includes that asswipe Gene Smith) on their own.
UCF SHOULD claim a National Title. They truly do deserve it. Perhaps it IS mythical, but so too is the joke playoff system crowning of the “preferred” conferences. After-all………..wasn’t the playoff supposed to eliminate the bias among participating institutions? Well, that was supposed to happen, and it’s where the BCS came up short. If anything, this rendition of crowning a mythical national champ is even more disrespectful to the 130 FBS level schools than anything EVER in the BCS era or the previous Bowl game lineups. All this stupid idea of a playoff did was create even more controversy and CLEAR preferential bias from a completely skewed selection process. At least the BCS weighted categories that everyone in the Country could plainly see based on rateable criteria. This clown show tiny little committee “POSSE” simply hides behind secrecy walls making absolutely arbitrary decisions………..almost entirely based on thin air. Witnessing their decision, thin air may be understated. More like model airplane/car glue infused air.
There’s a solution. End the NCAA as we know it. The powers that be are idiots who know less about football than my damned dog. Relying on their decisions has been as reckless as a group of drunks who are 200% above legal levels turned loose on the busiest holiday roads in America…………..all at once. NO administrator should EVER be allowed to make those determinations. They’re politicians. There’s not a politician in this Country who is trustworthy, honest OR principled. Every school willing to break away would be EQUALLY viewed regardless of institution size and exactly NO conference alignments. Geographical alignments? Perhaps, but certainly no conference affiliations. ONLY writers and football people allowed IN EACH geographical area allowed to vote for their area’s participants. ONE play-in team based on each regions voters based solely on results ON THE FIELD, not size of institution or a preferred brand. The winner of those four regional winners play the semi and eventual National Title games.
Again. USF SHOULD claim a National title because the joke the nation has been subjected to with the absolute biased so called title game as it sits, is more mythical than anything EVER BEFORE in college football.
Also. Every persons with a say so in geographical area MUST show publicly how they arrived at their determinations. How each category is weighted and calculated based on predetermined acceptable data and results.
Anyone decent can beat a 3 loss team in a single bowl game–UCF had a nice year of course but didnt deserve to be in the playoff–neither did Alabama, Clemson win or not../…UCF’s schedule–kinda like alabama’s–sorta sucked…you put any of the non-power 5 teams in one of the major conferences and we all know they probably have at least 2-3 losses on their best years. i root for the underdog but sorry–if UCF ad been in the Big Ten,they have at best 3-4 losses. That said, nice season for them.
You’re assuming with no facts to back it up Todd. WE ALL KNOW? We KNOW nothing of the kind. They “would have” based on what exactly? OPINION. Assumption and presumption should never enter the equation. The entire motive for a playoff was to determine an actual champion based on RESULTS not a biased opinion.
I can just as easily say that UCF would have dominated the Big 10 based on my opinion. But we can be CERTAIN that the results on the field showed that USF could have won the outright SEC title based on their performance against Auburn. The same Auburn that split the season 1 – 1 against their conference champ.
There’s EVIDENCE to back up on a claim that they could have won the SEC based on hard evidence. To think that they just “so happened” to beat Auburn is flimsy at best, because the facts immediately strike down that OPINION.
ALL FCS programs were to be included in the National conversation. It was supposed to be what set the playoff formation above the BCS. They have failed and in truth made it worse.
UCF (not USF) and FBS (not FCS). ^
James you are on fire with all of these comments! No need for me to comment because you have nailed it…”Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” John Adams.
Love John Adams.
Funny, Alabama won their game almost the way Ohio State did, with stifling defense and uncannily fortunate turnovers to gain a seemingly insurmountable lead they rode out while the offense was mostly impotent. Their scores weren’t that different either. Georgia and Oklahoma played so evenly, ending in OT and either of them could have won. Georgia already won the political NC with that win as far as I’m concerned. Unless flukey things occur my money is on Georgia. Kirby Smart knows all of Saban’s secrets. Easy scheduling is the direction for the major programs like Alabama, and even OSU will benefit from padding its schedule with Rutgers and Maryland for guaranteed wins year after year. Talk about alchemy. They went from cupcakes to Big Ten foes at the stroke of a pen. That’s a problem with making getting into a playoff the focus of the entire season. We now have to sit through two more boring, stat piling, uneven games every year. Those used to be Indiana, Purdue, Illinois. Minnesota, and a couple of OOC teams. Now it’s half the schedule. I hope they don’t add UCF. They have as much business in the Big Ten as Rutgers and Maryland, who only make the conference weaker.
Rutgers and Maryland will both get stronger as their recruiting benefits from their B1G affiliation. Maryland is on their way to a top 10 class in 2018 and Rutgers will start keeping some of those Jersey boys at home. .
You’re still promoting the same bias. Who says UCF shouldn’t be included? They just beat the SEC runner up and did what that joke Alabama COULDN’T do. Beat Auburn.
UCF had a remarkable year but their competition in general were run of the mill American Conference teams and not a tough schedule. Maybe they deserved a chance but it couldn’t be justified based on the overall lower quality of their opponents (unless somebody believes the American Conference teams are as strong as the SEC, ACC). I don’t think they’d have a chance with Georgia, Oklahoma, or Alabama. Without the playoffs UCF wouldn’t be considered as a top two team anyway, meaning the AP, Sports Writers, etc. of yore wouldn’t have crowned them either back in the good old days. Let them celebrate and claim their share of this year’s NC. I get that. Maybe after they’ve had another outstanding season, with the requisite signature win they will seem more credible as the best college football team in the country. I remember when BYU won the NC in 1984 there were some who didn’t think they deserved it because they were in the WAC but both the Coaches and the AP voted them #1 after they beat Michigan in the Holiday Bowl. BYU had a much better argument because they beat #3 Pittsburgh, Baylor, Tulsa, their WAC games, and Michigan. QB Robbie Bosco was #3 in the Heisman vote. They did it without benefit of a playoff. Today’s Committee wouldn’t have let them in, I suppose.
Think”, “Deserved”, Considered”……………….you’re falling into the exact same trap where opinion should be rated above actual results. If we’re going to consider bias above facts we’re doing nothing but agreeing with the same mythical “notions” based entirely on NOTHING BUT OPINION.
You don’t “think” they would have a chance against Georgia, Oklahoma or, Alabama. Based off of what factual criteria? While transitives can’t apply in every instance, they do in fact have some merit. Auburn beat Georgia. Auburn beat Alabama. UCF beat Auburn. We have actual results that is in direct conflict with your opinion.
I lived through the tumultuous late 60’s and 70’s. In 1970 when Ohio State finished atop the AP rankings, it’s actually debatable that they were even the best team in the state of Ohio. I attended every game Ohio State played. I also attended several games of the Toledo Rockets. If Ohio State beat Toledo that year OR 69 OR 71, they would have been facing the best opponent in College Football. Actually I believe the Rockets would have tossed the Buckeyes to the curb in 1971. There’s no way to prove it, but that unbeatable Rockets (35 straight wins) was an outstanding group. I believe 17th was the highest they could ever get to. I remember when they sealed the MAC title before going to the Tangerine Bowl and the sign that was carried around the entire stadium that year. “Toledo Rockets, # 1 in the whole world.” They may have been exactly right, and I’m a complete Buckeye homer. I watched every single game the Buckeyes played and followed every game that conflicted with Buckeye football, attending the ones I could get to of the Rockets. Chuck Ealey (he was superman for the Rockets behind center, just like JT has been for the Buckeyes……….but Ealey was the better passer) was every inch as good as Rex Kern. No doubt in my mind after watching them both play many times in person.
Why fall into the same confused silliness of opinion over results? It was NO fluke that UCF beat Auburn. They matched Auburn’s physicality across every phase of the game and proved to be the better prepared and conditioned team when one of the “perceived” big boys of college football should have had way too much gas in their tank for UCF to contend with. Just the opposite of opinions was proven on the field of play. Isn’t that what competition is “SUPPOSED” to be about? Not bias, not opinion. REAL RESULTS.
I’m well aware of all sides of this issue and haven’t fallen into any “trap”. Try not to be so condescending and presumptuous. Yeah, we all have opinions and everybody knows yours. Many of us have other things to do and can’t stay on a sports site writing rants all day so we write short bites and then get taken out of context. I watched all four of these teams several times this year, including UCF. I don’t get my opinions from ESPN or you or any particular place. It’s fine if UCF wants to claim a NC but in my opinion, and having watched all of them, at this point UCF wouldn’t hang with Georgia, Oklahoma, or Alabama. They didn’t win a national championship and it’s impossible to say they did. Your claim is based on the hot air of your own opinion. I don’t buy into the CFP either. I’ve said that elsewhere. I don’t give a flying fig about the Committee or the CFB or the SEC. I’m sick of trashing traditions and turning college football into pros. We’re in agreement there.
You’re the character promoting a condescending attitude with your wrong headed presumptions.
Once again with you lowly condescending nonsense. Let me give you a hint. I don’t give a damned what you think of me OR my opinions. At least my opinion demands RESULTS performed on the field. YOUR goofball opinion is based on your goofball opinion and sanctimonious bias.
Another clue for you. Before I state my opinion I do a good bit of research. That includes downloading every game that has relevance to a consideration of a playoff.
Again with your groundless bias. “UCF wouldn’t hang with Georgia, Oklahoma or, Alabama.” Yet, Auburn not only could hang with 2 of those…………beat 2 of those. Your position is based on antique rice paper. In case you missed in……….UCF beat Auburn. The same Auburn who was the runner-up 2nd place finisher of the SEC.
It is YOU with a completely arbitrary bias. A pathetically defined and wholly unsupportable bias at that.
UCF has EVERY right because of being shunned by illogical bias such as you present, to claim a National Title. Only 1 of the 2 teams in this fraudulent playoff has a right to be there. Georgia. They earned it on the field. Alabama didn’t even earn a shot to play for that shithole SEC conference title, because Auburn, who UCF beat, kicked the shit out of them.
I’ll write all the rants I care to write. Perhaps someday when you’re capable of putting your own life together, you too will be able to do what you like to do……rather than what you have to do.
Another hint. This took all of 4 minutes to type. I’d hardly call that…….all day.
Outstanding article, Tom! My best smile of the New Year so far!