by Sandy » Tue Jan 02, 2018 9:06 pm
The criticism of UCF was its conference, and not having played a tough schedule. However, they played one more ranked team than Clemson, Georgia or Alabama did, though they're not big-name teams, Memphis and USF both had better records than the teams in the ACC, SEC East and SEC West. And unlike Alabama and Georgia, UCF didn't lose to the ranked teams they played. Then they beat Auburn, which beat both Alabama and Georgia. That they did not get in was an injustice representative of the biases of the stacked selection committee. The College Game Day team has said that the legitimacy of the selection committee would be tested when a team from outside the power five ran the table with an undefeated schedule, and boosted their resume by having at least two or three quality wins over ranked teams. Initially, I think their comments were directed at Boise State, which at the time was doing that fairly frequently, but it applies to UCF. Three wins over top 25 teams, plus victories over a Big 10, SEC and ACC opponent. I think there's a better argument for them getting in than Ohio State, which won a power 5 conference, or Clemson, which only played one ranked team.