The past few months the headlines in college football have been dominated by the UCF Knights as they have reeled off win after win in 2018 after claiming a national championship to top off an unblemished 2017. Currently, UCF sits at 7-0 and is ranked No. 10 but something just seems off when trying to place the Knights into the playoff conversation. When sitting down to examine college football’s top tier programs more closely, several key factors stick out in opposition to the Knights. Today we take a look at the top three reasons why UCF does not belong in the college football playoffs.

A Logjam at the Top

The biggest and perhaps most pressing factor against the Knights in the immediate term is the sheer amount of quality teams currently above them with better resumes. Alabama and Clemson are both undefeated so they obviously belong. Moving down the list, how could anyone argue against dominant teams like Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Oklahoma?

These schools become even harder to place below UCF when you consider the terrible strength of schedule for the Knights with matchups against LA-Lafayette, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee. What? Oh, that’s right, that’s actually Alabama’s schedule. How about Furman, Georgia Southern, Syracuse, and Wake Forest? Nope, still the schedule of Clemson.

What about the one-loss teams ahead of the Knights? Florida lost a matchup with Kentucky and nearly dropped another to Vanderbilt. Yes, they did beat another top four team in LSU though so they must be good. Georgia dropped a 20-point game to LSU as well but the Tigers have been untouchable all season. In fact, LSU has already played Auburn, the team that UCF beat last season to spark the championship discussion, and topped them by a score of 22-21.

Texas lost to Maryland. That’s all that needs to be said on the subject.

Weak Conference with No Talent

Here’s the thing, despite a better overall record and a comparable schedule to this point in the season, UCF belongs to a weak conference with lackluster teams and talent. The “inferior” American Athletic Conference only has four teams with one or fewer losses this season, a mark that only the SEC can top with five.

For talent, the AAC boasts several guys likely to play on Sundays like Ed Oliver, McKenzie Milton, and Darrell Henderson. Of that group, Oliver may just be the best defensive lineman in the country.

Oliver is one of the most dominating interior defensive linemen seen in years. He has a natural toughness about him that he uses to dominate opponents on the field regardless of what conference he faces.

Memphis

UCF doesn’t belong in the playoffs and they made that very apparent when they narrowly escaped Memphis with a 31-30 victory after falling behind early by a score of 30-14. This kind of feels like deja vu doesn’t it? Please take the following list into account:

Syracuse 23 – Clemson 27

Notre Dame 24 – Ball State 16

Baylor 17 – Texas 23

Army 21 – Oklahoma 28

Purdue 49 – Ohio State 20

Okay, so now that we have cleared that up, it’s absolutely time for UCF to get a turn at the table. Going through the numbers and looking at the facts, the Knights are not asking for anything to be handed to them, they simply want a shot. The ball is in the court of the very qualified and very pro-Power Five selection committee now.