ORLANDO, Fla.- When college football switched to their playoff format everyone was ecstatic. It was supposed to give more teams a chance at a National Championship, which would give teams like UCF more opportunities. This year proved that to be untrue.
UCF was the only undefeated team in the Nation, and yet,they were left out of the College Football Playoff. In hindsight, people can see they were robbed of a once in a lifetime opportunity.
In the early 2000’s a new method of ranking became popular in college football, known as the Colley Rankings. The Colley Rankings were based on a statistical formula with two main contributing factors. Firstly, they considered wins, which seems obvious, but that didn’t prove to be the most important factor this year. The second critical factor of the Colley Rankings was strength of schedule. This is necessary in college football due to the large number of teams and the small amount of games. Strength of schedule is what the naysayers are shouting at UCF fans this week.
“The scheme adjusts effectively for strength of schedule, in a way that is free of bias toward conference, tradition, or region,” ColleyRankings.com explained the difference between their rankings and human rankings.
This year’s final rankings were put out today, and finally, UCF received the respect they have been searching for. The Colley Rankings ranked UCF first. This is just more fuel for the fire. Orlando will forever remember the 2017 UCF Knights as National Champions.
