This should pretty much end any debate on which team was the true national champion in college football for the 2017 season — Scott Frost doesn’t support UCF’s claim to the title.

While the Nebraska coach isn’t ready to say his team got a fair shot to claim the national title, he did recently state his belief that a program has to win the College Football Playoff to earn that distinction.

During his appearance at the annual conference meetings in Arizona, the former UCF coach was quoted saying only the Playoff champion earns the national title. Meaning Alabama has the only claim to the national title last season, not UCF.

“I completely get behind (UCF’s) argument,” Frost said, according to USA TODAY writer George Schroeder. “I do think it was almost criminal how low they kept UCF in the rankings, and I think it was intentional. But at the end of the day, the playoff system is that the national champion is the team that wins the Playoff.”

The Nebraska coach makes a fair point. Why a team like UCF should even play at the same level of college football if they aren’t going to be given a chance to compete for the national championship doesn’t seem right. That had to have at least played into his decision to leave the program for his alma mater, he had likely reached the pinnacle the UCF program would ever achieve by making a New Year’s Six Bowl and defeating SEC West champion Auburn in the Peach Bowl.

That’s a worthy accomplishment and one that will never be forgotten in Orlando, but the current Playoff system does not give a program like UCF an opportunity to compete for a true national title. Had he not left for Nebraska, Frost even said he would have preferred the program handled the offseason claims a bit differently than they have in his absence.

“All I’ll say is if we had stayed there, I would have had a hard time getting behind it,” Frost continued. “I think it was smart by them, because it has kept UCF in the media and in the conversation. But you know, like our rings, I kind of wish my ring just said ‘Undefeated Season’ and ‘Peach Bowl Champion.’ ”

If the coach that led the program to its undefeated season doesn’t claim the national title, it seems like it’s time for the school to drop the act. However, these words are likely to fall on deaf ears as all others have done this offseason for UCF and its athletic leadership.