You are right on Corey. I am basically a fan of UCF but no way they are national champs and while the game with LSU was entertaining in my opinion more breaks went UCF's way and a rematch would end up with the same winner by a bigger margin. Also UCF is very foolish to not accept the deal Florida offer that Florida made a two for one. We did make that deal with USF and in the past and likely the future they are equal to UCF.
Oh the rankings for next year, they look pretty reasonable to me. Georgia is signing a lot of 4 and 5 stars but they are also losing a lot players leaving early for the NFL and Texas showed they can be beaten.
Corey, I think the "National Championship" thing was working for them ,publicity -wise, after they beat Auburn. That was their windfall that gave them their big flood of national attention. We've seen Appalachia State and Troy and a few others pull of the one big win and they've been moderately successful after that but they didn't go undefeated in the rest of the season. That was the difference. I think Auburn and LSU are the only 2 teams have finished the year ranked in any of the polls. If they change that then I think their undefeated seasons will come to an end.
Let's see UCF play this year's Kentucky, at Tenn, at MSU, LSU and Georgia in succession and then take a breather at Vandy and then South Carolina. There's a lot of defense mixed in with that bunch and I've always said that takes a toll on any team physically and mentally.....
I'm having a good laugh at my Facebook feed at the moment. It appears that employers tomorrow are offering everything from free food, to free TV raffles to you name it for people who don't call in sick to work tomorrow. hahahahaha As luck would have it, I work for a company in Austin, TX so no one is giving anything away.
Seriously, just how difficult is it to win 25 straight games? Sure they can't play top notch teams like La. Lafayette and the Citadel every week but so many things happen such as turnovers, critical calls, injuries etc. It's pretty pathetic to hear people ragging on a team that went over 2 years without losing a game that finally had that streak end after the key to their offense went down with a terrible injury.
KP, One would think so... but then again, we've discussed the other half of your fan base Gip, I agree with you.
Gip, it is difficult to win 25 games and UCF is a good team I'm sure. The problem is they play top notch teams like the Citadel and La. Lafayette every week. That is all they play. Not one team in any of the polls. They claimed a National Championship based on that one win over Auburn last year. That's why I "rag" on them. They are a good team that needs to up their SOS if they want to legitimately play for the title and until they do enjoy being a good team.
Playing a UCF schedule or playing an SEC or Notre Dame schedule..... which one of those is likely to win 25 games in a row?
UCF beat Maryland last year too, which Texas didn't. It's not as bad as you make it out to be. It's not all Citadel and La Lafayette. They beat Memphis too, which UCLA didn't do with Josh Rosen at the helm. That same UCLA team beat Texas A&M.
UCF wouldn't have won 25 games in a row if they played in any of the 5 major conferences or if they had played Notre Dame's schedule. They have a good team, but they just don't face the week in and week out challenges that the Power 5 teams face. They are good enough, esp when they had McKenzie Milton to beat a good Power 5 team, but not good enough to have won any division of any Power 5 conference.
I see the over/under tonight is 62 points. I'm going with Alabama 34-28. Trevor Lawrence is good but he's not Kyler Murray good, yet. I also don't see Alabama getting out to a 28-0 lead like they did vs OU. Clemson defense is very good, both defenses are very good.
It's still a schedule sprinkled with a few games they can get up for..... not the week in week out grind of an ND or SEC schedule.
kp, I didn't intend what I said as a disclaimer. In fact, I expected LSU to utterly destroy UCF and that really didn't happen (well, 45 minutes of TOP notwithstanding). As far as losing 8 defensive starters, I would argue that the LSU backups were all more highly recruited/rated/talented than the UCF starters so losing those 8 may not have affected them as much as UCF losing their QB. Either way, I intended no disrespect toward LSU in this instance, but I did intend to communicate that I was surprised at how close the result was, and had that one thing been different, they may have shocked the world again. Or not. I do find both sides of the argument of the "reigning national champions" pretty funny. I think it's a very valid dig at UCF to self-aggrandize their achievement for all the reasons people discuss. I also think it is funny for fans of teams that claim titles for reasons just as flimsy as UCF to call UCF out on it. I have no cat in the dogfight so sit back and enjoy the fireworks, tallying points.
I see now that UCF is launching a go fund me account to investigate the SEC. I guess their allegation is that the SEC conspired to keep them out of the playoffs??? Supposedly they want to see every email from all SEC athletic depts. Kesley, as a fan I cannot control what the polls or what the athletic dept at the University of Alabama does. What I am talking about is happening today, not 70 yrs ago.
Well maybe they took LSU for granted..... ( probably not ) ... If not wasn't that a pretty good test of their playoff possibilities?
I wonder what kp is doing now? Making sure the beer is iced down, checking the coal's on the BBQ, unfurling his Alabama Flag, getting his favorite chair/lounger ready, making sure the proper snacks are available.