College Football 2018: 5 takeaways from Conference Championship Week

2. Can UCF shock college football again?

UCF still hasn’t lost a game since 2016 after the Knights took down Memphis in a shootout during the AAC Championship Game.

After falling behind early, the Knights surged to victory despite not having star quarterback McKenzie Milton, who suffered a gruesome leg injury last week.

In his absence, Darriel Mack Jr. stepped up big. He was responsible for six touchdowns on Saturday –– two through the air and four on the ground –– as he triumphantly led UCF to its second consecutive perfect regular season.

Given that the Knights are one of four undefeated teams in the nation, they will likely be in line to qualify for a top-notch New Year’s Six bowl game.

In 2017, UCF played Auburn in the Peach Bowl and was unofficially declared the National Champions after defeating the Tigers. Earlier in that season, Auburn beat Alabama and Georgia, the two teams featured in the National Championship game in the 2017 season.

UCF might not square off against a team that captured the wins that last year’s Auburn team did, but it will still face a much tougher opponent than the teams in its own conference.

If UCF is able to win again, it will be yet another shocking and surprising upset. It would surely beg the question of why the Knights weren’t considered for the playoff for the second year in a row.

A two-peat type performance of this nature could also potentially quell the naysayers that a Group of 5 team doesn’t belong in the playoff.

If a Group of 5 team has put together another miraculous season as UCF has, I don’t see why they should completely be written out of consideration.

If anything else, it may produce even more questions like should UCF move up into a Power 5 conference knowing it can compete with them?

That would be an interesting development given college football’s fairly recent reshuffling and expansion of select conferences.