Danny White, the athletic director for the University of Central Florida (UCF), claimed a national championship in NCAA Division I FBS gridiron football after the undefeated UCF Knights defeated the Auburn University Tigers by a score of 34 to 27 in a thrilling Peach Bowl contest.
I'm going to consider UCF to be unofficial national co-champions with the winner of the College Football Playoff (CFP) final, which is scheduled for January 8 and will feature the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and the University of Georgia Bulldogs, as the winner of the Bama vs. Georgia CFP final will invariably have one loss on their record for the season (both Bama and Georgia lost regular season games to Auburn).
Remember, the NCAA does not officially award a national championship in Division I FBS football. Instead, the College Football Playoff (CFP) was created in an attempt to avoid controversies over who would be generally recognized as national champion, which plagued the former Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system and its predecessors, largely because those systems lacked a single-elimination tournament format. The current CFP system is a four-team playoff ending in a stand-alone championship game featuring the winning teams from two bowl games (this season, the Rose and Sugar bowls were the semifinal games) from a six-bowl-game rota (next season, the Orange and Cotton bowls would be the semifinal games should the CFP still exist in its current form, and, two seasons from now, the Fiesta and Peach bowls would be the semifinal games should the CFP still exist in its current form).
However, as UCF's victory over Auburn proved, the CFP is plagued by a major problem that the BCS and its predecessors were also plagued with: the selection committee's bias in favor of larger-conference schools in or near former Confederate states, particularly members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). This year's CFP semifinals featured two SEC teams (both of which won their respective semifinal games), one Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) team, and one Big XII Conference team. Three of the four semifinalists were from former Confederate states, and the other semifinalist was from a state that neighbors two former Confederate states, and all four semifinalists were from one of the major "Power Five" conferences. UCF is from Florida, a former Confederate state, but it plays in the American Athletic Conference, which is one of the mid-major "Group of Five" conferences in FBS football. As a result, mid-major schools with strong football programs like UCF aren't really considered top-tier by the CFP selection committee, resulting in the CFP being to college football as the Electoral College is to U.S. presidential elections.
Here's my proposal for a solution to prevent national championship disputes in college football: a bigger college football playoff! If the CFP were expanded to eight teams, there would be enough room for the conference champions from all of the "Power Five" conferences and one of the "Group of Five" conferences, plus an independent team with at least a .750 regular season winning percentage (if there is one), plus an at-large bid.
I'm going to consider UCF to be unofficial national co-champions with the winner of the College Football Playoff (CFP) final, which is scheduled for January 8 and will feature the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and the University of Georgia Bulldogs, as the winner of the Bama vs. Georgia CFP final will invariably have one loss on their record for the season (both Bama and Georgia lost regular season games to Auburn).
Remember, the NCAA does not officially award a national championship in Division I FBS football. Instead, the College Football Playoff (CFP) was created in an attempt to avoid controversies over who would be generally recognized as national champion, which plagued the former Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system and its predecessors, largely because those systems lacked a single-elimination tournament format. The current CFP system is a four-team playoff ending in a stand-alone championship game featuring the winning teams from two bowl games (this season, the Rose and Sugar bowls were the semifinal games) from a six-bowl-game rota (next season, the Orange and Cotton bowls would be the semifinal games should the CFP still exist in its current form, and, two seasons from now, the Fiesta and Peach bowls would be the semifinal games should the CFP still exist in its current form).
However, as UCF's victory over Auburn proved, the CFP is plagued by a major problem that the BCS and its predecessors were also plagued with: the selection committee's bias in favor of larger-conference schools in or near former Confederate states, particularly members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). This year's CFP semifinals featured two SEC teams (both of which won their respective semifinal games), one Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) team, and one Big XII Conference team. Three of the four semifinalists were from former Confederate states, and the other semifinalist was from a state that neighbors two former Confederate states, and all four semifinalists were from one of the major "Power Five" conferences. UCF is from Florida, a former Confederate state, but it plays in the American Athletic Conference, which is one of the mid-major "Group of Five" conferences in FBS football. As a result, mid-major schools with strong football programs like UCF aren't really considered top-tier by the CFP selection committee, resulting in the CFP being to college football as the Electoral College is to U.S. presidential elections.
Here's my proposal for a solution to prevent national championship disputes in college football: a bigger college football playoff! If the CFP were expanded to eight teams, there would be enough room for the conference champions from all of the "Power Five" conferences and one of the "Group of Five" conferences, plus an independent team with at least a .750 regular season winning percentage (if there is one), plus an at-large bid.
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