AD Danny White explains why UCF claimed a National Championship
If you believe all publicity is good publicity, UCF AD Danny White would likely agree with you.
While many around the country are poking fun at UCF for claiming a National Championship, Knights fans and administration are dead serious on getting their message out.
Following UCF’s 34-27 win over Auburn in the Peach Bowl, the Knights’ brand was everywhere around the country. After all, UCF was the only school in the entire country to finish 13-0; so, it’s not entirely too crazy, right? Of course, things can go overboard.
White recently spoke to 247Sports and explained his reasoning behind leading the charge for UCF claiming a National Championship.
“We’re trying to create a conversation,” White told 247Sports. “I don’t know how you can decide a true national champion with four subjectively-picked teams by a committee. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s the only sport in America where it’s not settled on the field or the court. Professional or college, there’s no other sport where you can be your conference champion, you can play every single game and win every single one of them and have no opportunity for the so-called overall championship. We mean no disrespect to Georgia and certainly Alabama, who ended up winning the game; they’re the CFP champions. But we feel very strongly our kids deserve — there are several computer polls that agree with us — to be called national champions. Since the dawn of college football, that has always happened. In this circumstance, certainly the way the Peach Bowl played out, [Auburn] has a great team. Auburn beat Georgia and Alabama. There’s a compelling case that our team deserves to be national champions absent a system, an expanded playoff, that truly decides it on the field.
“I feel like as a leader and athletic director, it’s my job to always prioritize our student-athletes. I always will. And I’m going to fight for them when appropriate and I feel like it’s appropriate to fight for them right now.”
The Orlando Sentinel gave UCF a special “National Champions” section in the paper; UCF also had a championship parade where fans chanted “We Want Bama.” Florida governor Rick Scott even declared the Knights national champions. Heck, even UCF fans forked over the cash to put up a billboard in Tuscaloosa begging for a “home-and-home series” with Alabama.
Something tells us we haven’t heard the end of it either.
UCF doesn’t have anywhere close to a case. Their schedule was weaker than any of the top 10 teams and they are trying to use the transitive property to claim a title. They’d still have to beat Georgia again, and then they’d have to beat Alabama who beat Georgia and Clemson both of which beat Auburn. So, no UCF, you’re not national champions. You were a team that beat 0 top 5 teams in a season and then decided that they are #1 for winning out.
Did a computer poll agree with them as he suggests?
The old BCS system had them ranked like 2 or something like that
How would they know that? I ask because not all the components that went into the BCS is around today….
No way that’s accurate. The old BCS system used human polls and the humans didn’t have UCF anywhere close. Maybe some singlar poll had them one, but one of those had LSU first after the 2011 season. Not very credible.
One of the numerous ranking “systems” still recognized by the NCAA as a National Champion Selector is the Colley Matrix. They had UCF #1, so the next edition of the NCAA FBS Record Book will show that. I think it’s already up on the Wikipedia CFB National Champions page.
SOS clearly is not a big deal with the Colley Matrix.
Colley Matrix is not currently a recognized selector by the NCAA. You will not see the NCAA list them just like LSU didn’t get listed in 2011…
Bama, go ahead and give them the home and home. Humility is a good thing. Or is it humiliation?
Their stadium seats 45,000. Alabama isn’t going to travel to that band box, and neither would Tennessee.
He’s spot on. Can they pull off back to back to back wins in an expanded playoff? I doubt it, but anyone who thinks those kids didn’t earn and deserve the chance to prove it should just stop watching football.
exactly right here buck
No way did I think UCF belonged in the final 4 but dam as much as they are talking after the season I wish they would of put them in it. I have no doubt that Bama,UGA, Clemson,and Oklahoma would of kicked the crap out of them. They beat a Auburn team that had just lost it all against UGA and were probably heart broken. They couldn’t of went undefeated in any of the P-5 conferences this year,and wouldn’t of been a top 4 team.
UCF finished 13th in the final ranking (that actually meant something). That tells you that they weren’t even remotely in the conversation. They can beat their chest over their win over Auburn all they like, but everyone that knows the sports knows that Auburn didn’t want to play in the Peach bowl. Several of their guys skipped the game, and it really meant very little to them (just like the 2014 Sugar bowl for Alabama). Auburn was one game away from the playoffs, and lost to Georgia. THAT was a playoff game. Teams don’t want to play a consolation game (in any sport) after losing in the playoffs. It is just over and time to move on. But you cannot convince the Alabama haters of this. I have no doubt that the cry to name UCF champions is louder because Alabama won, than it would be if Georgia won, and especially not if Clemson or Oklahoma had triumphed.
Spot on.
Nothing to see here. With Heuple as HC they will be lucky to finish .500 in thier high school conference next year. Frost will resurrect Nebraska in <3 years.
I have to strongly disagree with the folks making the statement that they deserved a stronger ranking than they got in the polls. They did not deserve to be placed in the power rankings because they did not PLAY a power schedule. Hey, it’s free country. If they want to be included in the power rankings then all they have to do is go Independent. Quit playing those Little League teams and play against stronger competition. They would have a better chance to get home and home games with Bama, Clemson, N.D., etc. There would probably be a rush of northern schools wanting a mini-vacation during those winter months. Hell, Michigan already took a vacation down there for recruiting. Did any of y’all ask them if they wanted a Home & Home? I might suggest that y’all schedule some of the teams like USC east, Miami, Vir. Tech, Tenn. ect., before you start the “We Want Bama” BS. You might hope, wish and pray for that victory but so do a lot of other teams with better credentials than UCF. The road to despair is a lot quicker than the hope and prayer climb.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t an undefeated national champion have a 12-0 season record, then win their conference championship game to be 13-0, then win a semi-final game to be 14-0 before finally winning the championship game to be 15-0? 13-0 sounds like they are 2 games short of undefeated champions.
hurricane, dude.
Hurricane?? Nobody’s ever lost two games to a hurricane.
What?
There just can’t be a fake football play-off created by voters opinions. If such were adequate all the other divisions would be using that method instead of making the Champ (long accepted method) defeat the bracketed field. Of course Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, Oklahoma, Wisconsin had great seasons against ‘powerful’ opponents. Fact remains that the NCAA officially recognizes more than 5 conferences in the Division 1 FBS. Is it lost on the college football public that every statistic from every FBS game is considered equally. Do you hear, or read, sportswriters discounting those facts ?, absolutely not. The problem is that this season result was never anticipated or accounted for by the “college football playoff” bowl game design. And this failure in design was so extreme that it was destined to be proven inadequate sooner than later. So we have at least two champions in 2017, and it won’t be the last time until we get more of the politics, and money politics, out of championship design. Congratulations to all the D1 teams that had these entertaining years. Can we now discuss a flexible play-off field that includes undefeated programs? oh yeah, and can we get a consistent holding penalty defined so the biggest college games don’t turn into World Wrestling Federation bologna games that prove nothing.
Actually if you look the NCAA recognizes one team as the 2017 Nation Champion…. I’ll go with what the NCAA recognizes over what some guy that didn’t realize FBS and FCS were both Division 1 until called on if multiple times even though he was supposedly a div 1 coach…..