I Don't Want To Hear About UCF Being A Playoff Contender Anymore

UCF just shit the bed against Cincinnati. Now, I am not exactly a neutral observer here, as I bet UCF tonight. Hand up, that’s on me. I feel like Jim Calhoun when he took Caron Butler and Emeka Okafor.

That’s on me. Captain Cons said it on radio today and he was right. Cincinnati was the play tonight. I fucked up. But the bigger point here is that UCF has no more legitimate argument that they belong in the playoff conversation. UCF was the best non-power five team in the country for the last three years or so. They showed up against big time opponents, they played well in big games, and they beat who they were supposed to.

But this year has been different. Mackenzie Milton is out after his horrific leg injury, they bring in Brandon Wimbush from Notre Dame, only to not play him after Week One. Now they are rolling with a true freshman at QB, who has potential for sure, but now they have lost outright to Pitt and Cincinnati. Neither team is a bad team, but Pitt isn’t scaring anybody and Cincinnati barely beat UCLA at home and got blasted by Ohio State. That’s the real measuring stick here for UCF. They kept saying they belonged in the playoff. They said they were the real National Champions. They had rings made. They threw a damn parade. If you want to make that argument, you have to be on the level of an Ohio State, year in and year out. They just lost to a team that got their doors blown off by Ohio State.

UCF is a nice program with a good story. Scott Frost did a good job building them from nothing to a highly competitive team. But with him in Lincoln and Milton on the sidelines, they aren’t the same. They are not a playoff team. College football is a world of haves and have nots. If you don’t live in ACC, B1G, Big 12, Pac-12 or SEC, you are the have nots and this playoff system is not designed for you. Sad, but true. The UCF playoff discussion, which probably should have been over for a while, can’t be had anymore. If a non-power five team wanted to be considered for a playoff berth, they know damn well they have to win every game on the schedule. You sure as hell can’t drop two games in three weeks to Pitt and Cincinnati. It’s just not good enough.