re: SIAP UCF to hang a national championship banner in their stadium

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Fair enough. Just wanted to throw out a "in hindsight" out there...

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Yeah... I get it... it's why this whole thing is even happening right? Everyone wants to apply the transitive property to the win over Auburn to say they somehow could definitively have beaten UGA or Alabama... never mind that UGA and Bama lost to Auburn @ Jordan-Hare stadium, or the fact that UGA then created a 40+ point swing in the rematch... beating Auburn by 21 in the same place that UCF managed to hang on to win by a TD. It is what it is... a great season from UCF, but this nonsense is cheapening it in the eyes of most rational fans. I've yet to see a realistic argument put forth as to why they should have been in the top 4 teams based on the evidence available at the end of Week 13. Fair or not... that's the way it played out. They either were unable to or refused to reschedule the GT game (I've heard both... no clue where the truth lies)... meaning they played exactly one P5 team. Unfortunately, it was an awful Maryland... that at the time looked like an OK win since it was by SO MUCH after they'd beaten Texas... until we realized what both of those teams were.

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Reason I put that out there is a gauge to illustrate quality of teams that they beat. Look at FSU - they were ranked highly at the start of the season when Alabama beat them (#3), but we saw what FSU turned out to be. So, using how the team performed throughout the entire season seemed to be much more subjective of a look.

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So you're saying you "saw what FSU turned out to be" - except that they played the rest of their season with a true freshman backup quarterback. They were a flawed team, yes. But they weren't a 7 win team with Francois at QB. Again, that's why I called it out... if you *solely* look at end of season rankings, you are potentially ignoring relevant data. That personnel change is not insignificant. (And the same would be true regardless of the team that benefitted here... the reality is I obviously didn't have a preference for Alabama to make the CFP... but they were not "undeserving" as people seem to want to imply).

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Quality of wins - yes. Quality of losses - okay, how are you wanting to use this for your argument? In retrospect, it would go against your argument.

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What do you mean "in retrospect"? Again... you can't use bowl game outcomes to say "see, we would have been right"... the decision has to be made based on what happened up to and through the CCGs. The quality of losses is what ended up hosing Ohio State... @Iowa < @Auburn... the Oklahoma loss @home was more on par with the Auburn loss... that inherently is what killed them, the final nail was not beating Wisconsin by "enough".

If I'm exclusively comparing say Alabama and UCF, then obviously it's a quality of wins argument and then a look at Alabama's one loss to see if that changes the balance at all... I think losing on the road, to your rival who is a top 5 team is hardly enough to say... yeah UCF's quality of wins were essentially equivalent to Alabama's and they went undefeated... they belong. 1 P5 win...

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Okay, which SEC teams do you think would have beaten UCF that Alabama beat? This could be a fun discussion with hypotheticals. My guess is LSU or MSU may have be the only ones that would have been able to pull off the win. But I still think UCF would have beaten both of them.

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That's the thing... it's not about which teams do I think would definitely beat UCF... we're talking quality of *wins*, as in the teams that they played against... and if you look at Alabama's schedule and say how many of them were better than the teams on UCF's schedule, you can safely say a good chunk.

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Oh, they lost to another team in their division that ended up losing in the conference championship game. :)

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So they lost to a team that had 3 losses to 2 teams in the top 4 nationally, 2 wins over the #1 ranked team at the time of the game, and one additional loss on the road to another team that was better than most everyone on UCF's schedule...

(hard to keep up with what is a hypothetical and what isn't here... )

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So, you're asking if they get in over P5 conference champions? No, I don't think any independent school should get in. I believe only teams that are part of a conference and actually won their conference should take up the limited spots in the CFP. But if the question is changed to, "Should they get in over a P5 team that didn't win their division, and had the same number of wins over opponents that ended up ranked?" You bet they should.

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I mean, you can set the goal line there, I just disagree with your qualification. No biggie... reasonable minds can and will disagree on this. As I said, I have no preference for Bama to be in, but UCF was not a top 4 team prior to bowl season by any reasonable standard. They were not better than Alabama or Ohio State at a minimum, probably could have made a case for somewhere in the 6-8, but having 1 P5 game played hurts from a perception standpoint. I've seen the argument that no one wants to play them, but it just doesn't hold up. Typically, most of that OOC schedule would have been set about 2-3 years in advance... ie. right after they went 9-4, and then 0-12.