By Ken Reed
University of Central Florida (UCF) athletic director, Danny White, announced yesterday that the school will hang a national championship banner inside the school’s football stadium to celebrate the university’s undefeated football season.
Good for them. The so-called College Football Playoff is a joke. It’s not a true national championship because only about half of the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly NCAA Division I) programs have a chance to compete for a national championship. The current four-team playoff system is really nothing more than the Power Five Invitational, as only schools in the Power Five conferences have an opportunity to make the playoff.
The Power Five conferences operate as a cartel which keeps the so-called Group of Five conferences in the FBS out of the playoff. The NCAA goes along with this unjust arrangement because they’re afraid that the Power Five cartel might one day say, “We’re out of here! We don’t need the NCAA or all these other schools. If you hassle us, we’ll go create our own athletics association.”
Unfortunately, schools like UCF get screwed in this system. They aren’t treated fairly. UCF beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl to finish off a 13-0 season. They were the only undefeated team in major college football this season. UCF beat Auburn, who beat the two teams, Alabama and Georgia, who are playing for the “national championship” in a few days. Nevertheless, the Power Five cartel told UCF, “No, you’re not invited to our party.”
“There should be change,” White said.
“It’s not an equitable system … You can’t subjectively pick only four teams … I think you need to have at least eight teams in a playoff if you’re really going to call it a true national champion. Absent of that, we’re claiming a national championship for the 2017 season.”
You go Danny White! The College Football Playoff is as phony as can be. Until this deeply flawed system is fixed, any undefeated conference champion in the future that wins its bowl game and is left out of the playoff can also legitimately claim a national championship.
Former college football player and current college football analyst, Danny Kanell put it best on Twitter:
“This is so bad for college football. Fans are really gonna see thru the farce we call ‘playoffs’ and realize it’s a rigged system designed to benefit the elites.”
Exactly. Profit-at-all-costs — good old fashioned greed — on the part of the elites is what drives the Power Five Invitational.
It’s clearly isn’t fair play, sportsmanship or justice.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
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