The unbeaten run is over. And so is UCF’s dream of, uh, another national championship.

If UCF had beaten LSU and completed another perfect season, the Knights would surely have claimed another national title – and given college football’s grand history of such dubious claims, it would have been perfectly fine.

Instead, the dream died on the slippery turf of the Fiesta Bowl. After LSU’s 40-32 victory snapped a 25-game winning streak, what to make of it all?

Start here: It was zany fun while it lasted. And it is really unfortunate that a feel-good story became so polarizing.

Partly that’s because of the inexplicable aversion by college football fans to embrace the little guy. Fans who’ll jump aboard in March whenever a No. 16 seed pushes a No. 1 (and go flat crazy with joy when Maryland-Baltimore County finally beats Virginia) or when Loyola-Chicago makes an improbable run to the Final Four seem much less interested in pulling for or even appreciating the latest Group of Five upstart in football.

But in this case, it’s also a product of UCF’s unrelenting public relations push, which made it harder to appreciate the difficulty of continuing the unbeaten streak.

It began a year ago, on the field after that Peach Bowl upset of Auburn, when athletic director Danny White proclaimed the Knights to be “National champs. Undefeated!”

It was exactly what he should’ve done – but at some point, whether it was the parade or the rings or the coaches’ bonuses or the signage on the stadium or especially the incessant carping about the College Football Playoff – and then, more of that as they kept winning this season – the whole thing became a little less enjoyable.

“It grew organically,” White told USA TODAY Sports last spring, adding: “If we’re gonna be national champions, then we’re gonna do what national champions do.”

The Colley Matrix, a computer ranking that was once part of the Bowl Championship Series’ formula, ranked UCF No. 1 to finish the 2017 season, which means in the NCAA’s official record book, the Knights are officially listed as, yep, a national champion. But predictably, the claim upset fans of Alabama in specific and the SEC in general.

Nick Saban was rankled enough last spring to tell USA TODAY Sports, “self-proclaimed is not the same as actually earning it.” Given Alabama’s history of claiming national titles – including a bushel added decades after they’d been, uh, won – it was an interesting take. But Saban was also correct in saying we’ve reached an era in college football where there’s a system for winning on the field.

But White says the Knights didn’t have that chance because they don’t have a legitimate opportunity to get into the playoff.

Whether UCF was good enough to merit consideration in either of the last two seasons is a matter for considerable debate. But the noise White and others have generated has at least contributed to the larger discussion of whether the system should expand – though when it inevitably does, it will happen because Power Five leagues want more access, not because UCF was unhappy; inclusion of the Group of Five would be a bonus.

“We’re trying to fight for our kids,” White said last spring. “I feel like they earned something.”

And they had. And this season, as they kept earning things – including more respect – White kept fighting for them, which is his job. Along with UCF’s fans, he kept asking how a team could go unbeaten – for two years! – and not have a shot at the four-team bracket. In response, fans of Power Five schools kept harping on the Knights’ schedule, or lack thereof, saying they’d never survive the grind in a Power Five conference.

That’s correct – but it also didn’t give enough credit for how incredibly hard it is to win every game in a season, regardless of competition. And then to do it again.

This also is true: UCF cannot control the strength of its conference schedule. But when White recently turned down a chance to play Florida three times, he didn’t help the Knights’ argument.

He says UCF doesn’t need to schedule two-for-ones against Power Five schools. Which is fine – except Florida doesn’t need to play UCF, at all. And it’s not just any Power Five school, by the way: Florida represents something like a hundred years of in-state tradition that UCF needs to overcome. You get Florida’s athletic director publicly on the hook as willing to play, you take the shot.

Instead, White said no. That’s his prerogative, but it feels like a missed opportunity for the future.

The Fiesta Bowl goes down as a missed opportunity, too – but also a revelation.

Playing without injured star quarterback McKenzie Milton was a huge handicap. Darriel Mack played fairly well in his absence, but it’s easy to envision things going differently if the Knights’ best player was healthy and running that offense.

That’s football, though. LSU was missing five defensive starters going into the game (because of injury, suspension or preparation for the NFL draft), then lost two more in the first half with ejections for targeting (and oh yeah, for punching).

It’s to UCF’s credit that LSU sputtered in the red zone. It’s also clear the Knights were significantly outmanned along both lines. They gave up 40 points and 555 yards to an offense that has never been confused with explosive (and which, by the way, routinely struggled to score touchdowns when it got close).

The Knights had chances, including a wide-open drop on what should’ve been a 75-yard touchdown pass. Moments later, they managed only a field goal after recovering a muffed punt. (The would-be touchdown pass, by the way, came against a defensive back who’d been converted from receiver. Such was the state of LSU’s secondary.) Even so, they somehow hung in and had the ball with a chance to tie in the final minute.

With two undefeated teams set to square off next Monday in the College Football Playoff championship game, there would not have been another No. 1 finish in that computer ranking to use as a basis for the claim. It will either be Alabama or Clemson atop that and every other ranking.

Not that it would have stopped UCF and its vocal fans from claiming a title if they’d won the Fiesta Bowl. The façade of Spectrum Stadium in Orlando would almost certainly have been updated, anyway, to reflect another title. Instead, the winning streak ended, and with it a wild and very cool ride.

Still, UCF will forever claim to be “2017 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS.” And regardless of what anyone thinks of the idea – and even if the Knights made it harder to like them – we should all appreciate what they’ve accomplished.