Undefeated.  Zero games lost.  That’s what the 2017 UCF Knights did on the football field, yet they received no credit and weren’t taken seriously until they were victorious in the Peach Bowl.  And EVEN THEN did they not get the respect they deserved.  Something is out of place here, and thanks to the Knight’s perfect season last year, the perfect storm is brewing to rock college football to its very core this season.

Let’s recap last season.  UCF did everything possible in order to propel themselves into the college football playoff by winning every single game in the regular season and the conference championship.  This is an outstanding accomplishment, as the Knights were the only team in the nation with a goose egg in the loss column.

Apparently winning all of your games plus a conference championship doesn’t matter.  What seems more apparent is tradition and strength of schedule.  Sure the Knights aren’t in the ACC or SEC, but they are in one of the fastest growing conferences in the nation.  While eight of their opponents came from a conference that was fairly strong last season, UCF had to scramble to recover an important non-conference game that was lost due to a hurricane.  Georgia Tech was scheduled to play UCF early on in the year but was never rescheduled because UCF was playing host to the military while they were in the area to help out after the storm.

With all of that said, this is the most important season in NCAA football history.  If the Knights flop with a .500 record all of this national championship talk won’t even matter.  As mentioned, it seems that tradition and strength of schedule matter, not about winning every game (which isn’t that what every other sport is about?).  If UCF can make a tradition out of having a solid season the momentum will continue for not only them to be considered but other “group of five teams” as well.

In the 2018 AP preseason rankings, UCF is 21 while another G5 team, Boise State is ranked right below them at 22.  If these two teams can either run the table again or at least put up a fight and climb the rankings, utter chaos will unfold.  Not to mention if another team in unranked FAU has a season like their last.  It would be hard to ignore a UCF team that has one loss or is undefeated again in the rankings this year, as they were virtually disrespected last season because they weren’t a part of the “elite” power five group.

Even if UCF or Boise State go perfect again this season and don’t get in, it won’t be a failure.  It will expose the playoff system even further and even maybe help those schools make a case to switch conferences.  UCF was eyed by a few conferences a couple of years back and with their recent success and rapid growth in the city of Orlando, they could very well find themselves as a part of the Big 10 or similar structured conference.  Then, maybe they’ll get the respect they deserve.

But that’s not the case at the moment.  UCF is part of the AAC, which despite not being in the “power five” is the best conference in the “group of 5.”  This is why the AAC is working to coin the phrase power six, as they had three teams ranked in the top 25 heading into the final week of the regular season in 2017.  However, the biased committee that sits at the head of the CFP selections doesn’t view the AAC as such.  They simply ignore the fact that when a team does everything in their power to make it in to the playoff by winning EVERY game and it’s still not enough, it shows there is a serious issue and the College Football Playoff is more of an invitational tournament than a playoff.

So what can be done?  UCF, FAU, and Boise State all need spectacular seasons that see them get double digit wins.  It would be amazing to see one of the three go undefeated to really send things into a frenzy.  This will hopefully make the anti-G5 writers, analysists, etc. realize that a team that can run the table should get a shot at a championship.  Furthermore, it could trigger an expansion of the playoff system.  Even six teams could be better than four, giving the first and second seeds a bye in case people are worried about wearing out college students after a grueling regular season.

Much controversy looked to shake the college football world around last season.  If it happens again this season, not only will it be a fun one, but it could change the sport for the better as we know it.