Nick Saban says UCF didn’t actually earn the national championship
Nick Saban has finally offered his two cents about UCF claiming a national championship after their undefeated season while Alabama actually won it.
UCF spent much of the offseason making and handing out championship rings to their coaches and players, hung a national champions sign inside their stadium at the spring game and didn’t miss an opportunity to call themselves national champions on Twitter.
The only thing wrong with that is UCF didn’t win the national championship.
Alabama did after beating Georgia in overtime of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
UCF had a great season, finishing 13-0 with a Peach Bowl win over Auburn, who beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl so, by the transitive property of college football, UCF claimed the national championship.
That’s all well and good but it’s hollow and just because you said it, doesn’t mean it’s true.
The advent of the College Football Playoff was created in part to do away with split national champions which happened every now and then during the BCS Era and throughout college football history. Heck, even Alabama claimed national championships decades and decades ago.
But anyone who watched college football last year, and those who didn’t but have a modicum of common sense knows it was Nick Saban’s team crowned kings of the sport.
Now, it’s Saban who is weighing in on UCF’s claim of a national championship and heaping a big ole pile of shade in their direction in the process.
Saban tells George Schroeder of USA Today:
"“If you honor and respect the system that we have, (despite) some of the imperfections that you understand that the system has, then you wouldn’t do something out of respect for the system that we have,” Saban told USA Today. “I guess anybody has the prerogative to claim anything. But self-proclaimed is not the same as actually earning it. And there’s probably a significant number of people who don’t respect people who make self-proclaimed sort of accolades for themselves.”"
Part of me wonders why Saban would bother about something like this when he could have easily let it go. He’s the king of the sport as the greatest football coach in college football history, so I don’t know he has to concern himself with this. But he did let them have it by saying they didn’t earn it or respect the process. I imagine that won’t sit well with the UCF faithful in Jacksonville, but I don’t think Saban cares.
Having said that, I really wish Saban would have said Alabama welcomes UCF to their stadium for a game at any point over the next few years to squash this make-believe beef.
I know UCF would jump at the opportunity, but they wouldn’t like the outcome because they’d likely get stomped and lose 49-10.