UCF Football: 5 takeaways from Knights’ perfect 2017 season

2. Group of Five teams must play a major Power Five program

UCF is in the American Conference and won’t likely move into the SEC or ACC any time soon. The Pac-12 and Big Ten make little sense, logistically, so the Power Five conference they could reasonably join would be the Big 12.

The Big 12 only has ten teams and if they’re looking for expansion UCF could strangely make sense regarding the conference’s focus on high scoring offense and forgetting what defense is. In the meantime, the Knights need to schedule like Boise State and consistently play a traditionally great team in the Power Five grouping.

In 2017, the Knights had Georgia Tech and Maryland scheduled. Even if the game against the Yellow Jackets hadn’t been cancelled, Tech finished 2017 ranked 74th in the S&P+ and lowly Maryland finished 114th. That Maryland dud, plus the American schedule and FIU put UCF 54th in strength of schedule per teamrankings.com. The CFP final four were ranked Nos. 2, 4, 6 and 7 in strength of schedule by the same metric.

In 2016, UCF played Michigan; in 2015 they played Stanford and South Carolina. Back during the Fiesta Bowl run of 2013 under O’Leary and quarterback Blake Bortles — UCF played Louisville, Penn State and South Carolina beating the Cardinals and Nittany Lions but dropping a close game to the Gamecocks.

Louisville, Penn State, South Carolina and Stanford are much better for strength of schedule and to prove you belong than Maryland and FIU. In 2018, UCF has Pitt, FAU, and North Carolina on the schedule giving Josh Huepel competitive but not a murderers row for his first season as a head coach.