Big 12 Football: Top 5 expansion candidates for the conference

UCF ended the 2017 season as the only undefeated team in the nation. They weren’t even invited to the College Football Playoff. Had they played a conference schedule like Oklahoma faced and gone unbeaten, the Knights would never have been left out of the final four. And their head coach, Scott Frost, would have had to think much harder about bolting for new employment at his alma mater.

Instead, UCF is the national champion — at least according to the state of Florida. The American Athletic Conference champions went through an 0-12 season just a few years ago. They also rebounded to go 13-0 two years later. With better institutional support, in the form of conference payouts and respect before the selection committee, the Knights would probably experience fewer blips.

They are, after all, right in the heart of one of the nation’s recruiting hotbeds. And as the only Big 12 school in the state, UCF would offer a chance to play teams like Texas and Oklahoma regularly while still remaining close to home. It would also open the door for other schools to recruit more heavily than they already do in the state.

For the Big 12 to remain viable, it is going to have to find a way to overlap into SEC and ACC country. UCF certainly does that admirably, and at one of the largest universities in the nation no less.