The reaction of Alabama’s players to the “Central Florida national champs” cheeky narrative is about what you’d expect…
… but I do love this one, for obvious reasons.
Hmmm… maybe Gus tanked it on purpose.
The reaction of Alabama’s players to the “Central Florida national champs” cheeky narrative is about what you’d expect…
These pictures are live! Where can i find one with y’all holding the trophy? https://t.co/eo4O6daenL
— Damien Harris (@DHx34) January 29, 2018
… but I do love this one, for obvious reasons.
Auburn had one job!🤦🏾♂️ https://t.co/WvcKkDAgOt
— Terrell Lewis (@_Real24_) January 29, 2018
Hmmm… maybe Gus tanked it on purpose.
“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
Everything UCF does now makes them look more silly. Yes, I understand the game was in Orlando, and the NFL probably needed to sell some tickets. It just seems goofy that they are running around claiming to be national champions. Honestly, it’s dumber than Big Ears’ claim to the title in 2004.
There is a part of me that would have liked for the committee to have put them in over Alabama to be destroyed by an interested Clemson team.
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100% agree with how stupid this makes people look whether they are fans or media. UCF had a great season, and earned the respect of many of how quickly they went from really sucky to decent. Now they lose credibility with the demonstrations of how little they know about college football. Being a believer in the “any given Saturday” doctrine, I can see them upsetting any team in America during a regular season game. To think they could go a season unbeaten at the next level, much less survive a multi game playoff against other top teams, is laughable.
That said, the single best team in the Group of 5 deserves a seat at the table in the 8 team playoff formula I support. The Hawaiis and UCFs may knock someone out in the first round occasionally, but that is probably as far as it will ever go, maybe not. But when players do all they can possibly do by beating everyone in front of them, knocking down all the pins in front of them, let them see how close they can get to reaching their dream. With every conference champ, and the best of the Group 5 in the mix, we will have removed the obstacles that every group of athletes had their chance. That is meaningful and why I have always supported “exclusive inclusion”.
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If (or should I say when the money makes it palatable) the CFP expands to 8, I agree with including the best Group of 5 team. My only objection would be a year where the “best” Gof5 team is sitting at somewhere below 20 (or even 15) on Selection Sunday. If we’re going to pass over a bunch of “more deserving” wildcards to get the Gof5 team in, that’s makes my stomach churn.
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If the top 8 are picked, why would anyone dip further just to include another team for any reason?
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I’d ask the same question about the top 4.
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Please reread my first six words…..
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All Power 5 conference champs, the highest rated Group of 5, or Independent team, next 2 highest rated teams not otherwise qualified and you are set. Four highest rated host the opening round games in mid December. Conference championships mean a lot, and all teams have to play to the bell to insure home field advantage for the 1st round.
No agreement will ever be reached about the “best 8”, that is BS thinking. And the champion will never be unanimously considered the best team, it isn’t about that in any sport, it is about recognizing a champ. Take the excuses away, everyone will have a shot to get in. Win your conference and no one can block you or vote you out. Winner is the national champ, everyone can argue all the off season about who might have won, or might be the best, but no one can argue who is the national champ. And that goes for any season after this is adopted.
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I agree, but what I would say is that nothing related to the CFP has anything to do with logic and everything to do with maximizing ratings and money. If the WWL is willing to pay for 8 with a Gof5 team in but not in the top 8, that’s what the powers that be will do.
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I don’t believe anyone really believes UCF has a bettter football team than Alabama (excepting some of the UCF players..football players always think they’ll win)
Here’s the deal. Don’t try to tell me you believe UCF won the NC and I won’t call you a liar.
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Or phrased a little differently, if you had to bet your entire life savings on one team to win, I’d love to see how many people would then choose UCF over Alabama.
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Or Oklahoma, Clemson and UGA. UCF would be run over by any of that group.
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I agree 100% DawgDaddy!
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We all know that if Auburn had beat UCF the Aubs fans would be going around claiming a National title just the same.
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And Gus is laughing his ass off all the way to the bank! Atta boy Auburn!
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Alabama gets a taste of their own medicine.
At least UCF didn’t wait several decades to claim it.
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I see your point, and agree about all the illegitimate claims to “national titles” over the years, but name one single ranking, computer or media poll, that has UCF in the top spot. There are a few nutcases in Florida, and Danny Kannell (redundant, I know), who state UCF is the 2017 best team.
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FWIW Georgia has gotten screwed by this sort of thing in the past so I understand the thinking in Orlando even if I don’t agree with it. The 2002 13-1 Georgia team IMHO would have beaten either of the teams that played in that year’s BCSNCG. In 2007, at the end of the season at least, that Georgia team was the best team in the nation. Period. Finished number 2 in the final post-season polls. Never given the chance to play for the championship though. LSU won it all in 2007 after not having to play the Dawgs in the 2007 SECCG. I am convinced that Dawgs team would have beaten LSU in the SECCG if given the chance and would have won the BCSNCG if they had gotten to play in it. And to top it off, the Dawgs played LSU in about the 5th game of the season the following year and kicked the Tigers’ asses. Sorry. Rant over.
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Under any imaginable scenario, how can a loss by Auburn be anything but good?
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Meanwhile in the real world, the KirbyKopter is flying all over Georgia and Saban is Walking the Dinosaur in a recruit’s living room. Champions celebrate by getting after it for the next test. Don’t get too high; don’t get too low and hit the next goal.
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I think this would be matter to me if Dom Sanders had remembered what to do in Cover 2.
Given how it actually turned out? Go ahead and throw some shade on Alabama. Why do I care? I don’t. Not even a little.
It’s an illegitimate title because of the refs not UCF but why quibble? UCF is right in one respect: someone else deserved that title.
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Word.
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Let the kids revel in their undefeated glory. They are kids who are enjoying the spotlight in a manner contrived by adults and I really don’t care if their partying may be one of delusion or not; however, I do think the retorts from other ‘Bama kids provide good Mon morning humor for us all.
If the kids’ celebration bothers you that much, I invite you to focus your attention to the perpetrator, UCF AD Danny White, who is the organizer Majordomo behind it all. He also is embracing the crowd’s hugs that demonstrate to him that he is such a genius for hiring Frost and his assistants and who now are taking White’s PR genius to Nebraska as a group. He keeps his image out there while the kids unknowingly tout him every time they air their claims and wherever their celebrations surface. He is their Mangiafuoco until next year’s team and beyond since he is the remaining UCF official who can take credit for it all.
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UCF administration is make a major blunder by pushing this totally ridiculous “National Championship.” If they played the situation right, they would have been a respected, scrappy G5 team many third-party fans would support against the other conferences and teams. Now, they have painted themselves as a silly program that will play up any scenario that favors them. I for one respected them before this stunt. Now, I hope they lose every game next year, so they cannot make any ridiculous claims in the future. (Plus, this makes me resent Auburn that much more.)
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Hmmm… maybe Gus tanked it on purpose. Learned it from Kirby?
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We’ll start with a G5 team having to be undefeated and before it’s all over we will have been brow-beaten into taking a 2 loss team with 2 terrible losses. There’s also a level of fairness in regards to teams that DO play in Power5 leagues that seems to be completely unaccounted for. Mississippi State, in their last Dan Mullen iteration, would probably go undefeated every 3 years, maybe even more often, if they played in the American Athletic Conference…….
there’s also a level of whining to this conversation that sounds an awful lot like a millennial communist. “Give UCF power 5 money and resources [and then we’ll really see] !!”……..”If ESPN would only give us a fair TV contract like the rest of the leagues”……….Oh I’m sorry. I guess we should be apologizing for developing 100 years of tradition before your college even existed. And it’s somebody else’s fault that people watch SEC games and not your games. And it’s somebody else’s fault that your average attendance is in the 20Ks…….if SOMEBODY would just fix it, then the world could see how great you all are.
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I think UCF is going to have major difficulty scheduling Power 5 schools to boost their resume because of these shenanigans. I hope they suffer. The world doesn’t owe you something because of 1 great season and it’s not the system’s fault that you have a $26m/ year budget shortfall in your insistence to put a top level collegiate football team on the field in Orlando. The American and Florida taxpayer will survive just fine if your football team didn’t even exist and would probably appreciate the revenue going back into something more useful.
When you remove the assumption that it’s somehow important to the world for a commuter school from Florida to have a chance to compete for a title at the top level of collegiate football, then you realize how ridiculous this whole thing is.
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Lighten up….these kids beat everyone they played….they did all they could do….they do have every bit as logical claim to the title as anyone. Any team that shows what a worthless excuse for a program Auburn is, is OK by me. Party on Wayne…Party on Garth. Just don’t use this as some BS excuse to expand the play-offs because some team is always gonna be bitchin. If it was 8 teams do we really let UCF ,the OSu, Penn State and USC in and than have to listen to Wisconsin bitch….please understand your just lowering the irrelevance level of the party bitchin BUT someones gonna bitch. The old BCS format would have had what this year? UGA vs Clem’s son…..hell bring back the BCS. It all just makes for more layers of BS but it is still BS. If its BCS we beat Auburn with a lake for the MNC.
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I would say they have a historically illogical claim to the title. Logic went out the door for UCF when the CFP was established. UCF didn’t meet the criteria to hoist the trophy. End of story. Not that I care about their feel good effort one way or the other… more power to ’em.
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This whole fiasco supports another position I have with which many others (especially ‘sports’ guys on TV/radio) disagree. ALL games matter. You [should] play every game to win. For everyone who says none of the bowls outside of the CFP matter, I present UCF’s argument as Exhibit A to the contrary. This game really should have mattered to Auburn, and to college football. With everyone applying an expanding transitive property to college football games, every game matters. Exhibit B: LSU’s game against Troy.
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ESPN Deportes is reporting that UCF has changed it’s name to Snowflake University.
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Wouldn’t you be the snowflake? I mean they are the ones doing the thing and you are the one getting your feelings hurt about it.
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