UCF vs. CFP: How a Banner Created a Monster
It all started with a 2017-2018 season that ended in unexpected undefeated fashion, but landing with a spot outside the playoffs. Even though they remained the only undefeated team, the University of Central Florida football program wound up playing the Peach Bowl against a bitter and disinterested Auburn team (who had their own gripes against the playoff system). The ratings weren’t pretty, the excitement wasn’t really there, and a disrespected UCF upset the SEC darling. The playoff talk wasn’t too loud and obnoxious, instead there was a focus on how UCF went from completely winless to undefeated, and with some nice offensive numbers and a rising star quarterback at the helm.
Then came the championship banner. And the parade in Magic Kingdom. And Rick Scott announcing them as national championships. And of course the Champion claim being permanently etched on their stadium.
Before you know it, half of college football was out for their blood.
The most polarizing winning streak in modern college football, and the longest since Alabama’s run earlier this decade finally met its fate at the hands of LSU at the Fiesta Bowl. Without the quarterback McKenzie Milton, UCF had to rely on backup freshman quarterback and came within eight points to LSU, a team that was determined to end their streak. LSU came up with a great gameplan: keep the defense on the field and wear them out, and prevent the offense from building any momentum with their limited opportunities. The UCF defense would make several mistakes, with the 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty that prolonged an LSU series while up 14-3. LSU would score and take over the next couple quarters. UCF also couldn’t rely on the long ball because Darrell Mack Jr. didn’t have Milton’s range, and because they couldn’t catch a ball under the undesirable grass conditions. Great game nonetheless.
The streak lasted two years, multiple close calls, several blowouts, garnishing enough chatter to get Disney’s attention and having one of their games become nationally televised, a devastating injury to their star quarterback, Alabama snatching a team from UCF’s future scheduling, and an abundance of bitterness and hatred from those against their National Champion campaign. You were whether for their cause to at least have a chance for as long as the loss column remained at 0, or hated them for claiming a champion that technically wasn’t even theirs.
What started out as a fun National Champion campaign headed by a marketing department capitalizing on their rare situation to recruit more players and bring more attention to the Central Florida school snowballed into an insane debate that picked up steam when UCF got ranked completely outside the Top 25 in most preseason polls the following season and ranked 23rd in the official poll. They had to do the extremely rare deed of going undefeated AGAIN in order to even consider an outside shot at the playoffs—and started doing just that. Lost in this argument is the fact that UCF would have to do something not done since Nebraska in the mid-90s: back-to-back undefeated seasons, including bowls. As the wins piled on, the UCF fanbase got louder, which would be then followed by an even louder resistance. Even ESPN’s College Gameday would get involved, and it resulted in one of the better Gamedays the show had seen in a while.
Before I continue I will toss this olive branch: all your arguments about UCF’s schedule, lack of legit opponents, and sometimes ugly victories are extremely relevant and do make sense. The problems arise when ESPN, the ranking system, and even some of the schools were going out of their way to upset the story. The gasoline to the growing flames surrounding the UCF claims (which by the way was a marketing campaign that transformed into a hot button topic) was the disrespect and actions to continue to belittle a UCF team.
Ranked outside the Top 25 in most preseason polls despite having nearly the entire team from the season before was a start. Then came the extremely nitpicky commentary on UCF’s wins themselves, crushing the school on certain aspects while forgiving more popular schools of similar problems. Notre Dame struggled mightily at times but it was “their grit” that would keep them in the top 5. But UCF’s heavy yardage giveaway (not points, mind you) was problematic. Then we were seeing two and three-loss teams being ranked ahead of UCF, while the program remained beating any opponent that was on the other side of the field. Notre Dame doesn’t even have a conference to win a championship from, we are going to overlook this?
Then here came the series of events before the Gators added to the storyline with their 2-for-1 proposal: Milton gets injured horrifically during a late November game and is out for the season, the Knights win the game regardless, Michigan gives up 60 in an absolute blowout against Ohio State and gets ranked ahead of UCF, the Peach Bowl destroys a good opportunity by not creating a Gator/Knights matchup (with Gator influence in the committee, I don’t care if they deny this), and the Fiesta Bowl sends the Orlando squad across the country to Arizona. Then after seeing a potentially career-ending injury to their star, seeing their playoff chances officially done, a rather conspicuous decision to not place an undefeated UCF against an in-state rival, we see the 2-for-1 proposal. Danny White has been put through the ringers and is expected to say yes to a slightly disrespectful deal that really doesn’t benefit UCF much. 24 game winning streak and the result is no playoff and a two-for-one deal? Tastes like sour lemons.
If you are Danny White on mid-December, why take this deal? At that point of the year, your football program lost Texas to Alabama in terms of scheduling (and jaded payback), you lost your star quarterback, you deliver a second undefeated season but get a bowl game hundreds of miles away instead of up in Georgia (nearly a year after delivering stronger ratings), and then the rated-lower Florida Gators offers a two-for-one that is heavily skewed towards them. So a school ranked lower than you waits until after they land the geographically-friendly Peach Bowl and after Milton is revealed to be inches from ending his time at UCF to offer a lopsided deal?
But the Florida Gators have the ability to create this because of a simple reason: the power of the SEC.
SEC rules college football. Whether or not your team is good, if you within the borders of the SEC you will get the respect. SEC garnishes the most attention, makes the most money, gets the most love from the College Football Playoff, and of course has the tightest connections with ESPN and all their polls. This conference has dominated the millennium, five of the last ten teams in the CFB Championship Game are from the SEC. And even when your SEC team isn’t in the playoff, you root for a team from your conference to win it all to keep the reputation of being the corner of the country that produces the best and strongest teams, which in turns guarantees your team to always have a possible road to the playoffs the following season. The Florida Gators hasn’t threatened the rankings in years, and hasn’t been in champion conversation since Tebow, but their leverage exists because of where they are. They are part of an unbreakable wall.
UCF threatened the status-quo, and for that became a target. How dare the Group of Five threaten and demean the Power Five? How dare UCF, not even in our exclusive club, claim any sort of championship? Part of the hate stems from the fact that guess what, UCF completely has a point.
For as long as UCF remains on their conference, no scheduling changes they commit to will give them a playoff shot. They literally won 24 games in a row, which included bowl wins, conference wins, and even a victory against an SEC squad, and the best they were ranked was sixth at the end of the 2017-2018 campaign after Alabama had already won their championship game. UCF can say yes to the three Gator games, win them, go undefeated, and it STILL wouldn’t be enough, and it would be worse if the Gators that season were to completely suck (which is still in the equation considering their lack of success since the Tebow days). In the meantime, an SEC team can lose in the regular season, not even be in the conference championship game, and STILL have a shot at the title---which happened to Alabama just this past season. When these schedules were planned years ago, it was when UCF had zero victories and zero chance of even tasting a bowl game berth. Nobody ever expected this winning streak, least of all the school itself.
But they can’t join the SEC, they can’t go non-conference because they lack the mainstream Notre Dame appeal and television deals, and depending on the other schools to step up is a longshot because of money and complete lack of recruiting appeal. That was the point of the National Champion banner, it was to bring attention and contradict a playoff system that is skewed towards the bigger schools and carries extremely unfair and sometimes impossible expectations. As previously stated, not even a 24-game winning streak was enough to even be offered a chance. They couldn’t even land a #4 rating to at least see how they’d manage against Alabama. The Big 10 would partially ride this wave of anti-playoff system activity with their complaints about Ohio State’s exclusion from the playoffs.
The BCS Standings and CFP Playoffs created an environment which has become the only major sports league in the United States to have the potential scenario of an undefeated team not even have the chance to host a championship game. And it used to be even worse when Boise State back in the 2000s had a five-year stretch where they lost only five times TOTAL, including two undefeated seasons, and never got to play in a championship. Their highest ranking at the end of one of those seasons was #4, and had a #2 ranking throughout the year…once.
There is no last team standing here, there is no expanded playoff to include all conference winners to offer all of them equal shots at being in the final game. I’m not here to offer solutions (because until the players get paid there’s not much we can do here), but I’m here to point out the truth: UCF takes the Gator deal, UCF can sprinkle a couple Big 10 and extra SEC matches for the next few years, they can even bypass their conference championship game and take on Notre Dame, but they will still not have enough momentum from the polls to make it to the Top 4. That’s the reality. Some schools even within the same state (USF) have accepted this fate, but UCF is trying to be taken seriously, and sometimes the only way to draw some attention is with hot button press. Part of saying “no” to the deal is to prolong the conversation and keep the fight towards more equality across all conferences and schools when its time to do the rankings.
Whether you enjoyed their streak or not, it’s hard to deny UCF’s clever marketing and attention-obtaining skills. The Peach Bowl’s TV ratings between the Gators and Wolverines was actually lower than when the Knights took on the Tigers. The 2019 Fiesta Bowl actually ranked higher than the Peach Bowl this season. The UCF Knights are no longer just a squad in the ACC, they are now one of the most-discussed teams in college football, and only time will tell how long this wave of controversy continues. Nowadays, UCF re-ignited the expanding playoff conversation, and has become the biggest name in Group of Five football. The winning streak accomplished much more than intended, and even though it doesn’t move them any closer towards playoff territory it was a mission accomplished. Now sports fans and pundits know UCF, and will be ready to pounce if UCF can do it all over again.
Except maybe next time, they’ll be ranked fifth, and still under Notre Dame.