Central Florida Claims a National Title. Want to Fight About It?

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It started New Year’s Day, right after No. 10 Central Florida defeated No. 7 Auburn in the Peach Bowl, 34-27, and improved to a perfect 13-0.

Central Florida Athletic Director Danny White turned to ESPN’s roving camera and declared: “National champs — undefeated.”

White is, among other things, a salesman for his school. Forgive him for a move that had a whiff of pro wrestling to it.

But Central Florida is really serious about this.

The university’s president, John C. Hitt, congratulated “our undefeated, national champion Knights.” White announced the Knights would hang a national championship banner and pay the team’s coaches their national championship bonuses. Josh Heupel, the incoming head coach, — tweeted about how excited he was “to defend our national title.” (Scott Frost, who led the Knights to this season’s 13 wins, is leaving to coach Nebraska.)

By Wednesday, Wikipedia — perhaps the only factual authority still widely accepted in 2018 — identified Central Florida’s claimed national title.

Got a problem with that?

The top-tier college football championship has always been the most ephemeral of sports titles. In the decades when there was no official judge, two, three or more teams would frequently claim to be the champion of a single season. If other sports’ championships are as solid as gold-backed currency, this one has long felt closer to Bitcoin.

In that light, Central Florida’s case is not that crazy. In fact, when you think about it, your reaction may resemble the popular GIF of the N.B.A. star Alonzo Mourning: first, a head-shaking disbelief; then a raising of the eyebrows followed by a hesitant nod; and, finally, the universal sigh of acceptance.

“I say Central Florida can claim it if they want to,” Dan Jenkins, the longtime sportswriter and author of “Saturday’s America,” a collection of college football columns, said in an email.

He added, “We have nothing to lose but more bumper stickers.”

Of the 130 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, Central Florida is the only one that won all its games — including, at a neutral site on Monday, Auburn, which had beaten both Alabama and Georgia, the two teams that will play in the College Football Playoff national championship game next Monday.

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“Only thing we can keep doing is winning games,” Shaquem Griffin, a senior linebacker for Central Florida, said after the Peach Bowl win against Auburn. “There’s no more teams left for us to beat.”

To be sure, Central Florida is not going to replace Georgia or Alabama in the national title game next week, or play that game’s winner. And Oklahoma and Clemson were invited to the College Football Playoff semifinals, rather than Central Florida. Central Florida’s season is over. Fine, Griffin argued, but that has nothing to do with the Knights.

“What more can we do?” he said. “We won all of them, and I just feel that we should have had an opportunity to show our talents to any and every team that wants to go against us.”

It’s far from unusual for multiple teams to claim a national title. Five claimed one in 1935; six did in 1981. In fact, from the end of World War II to 1998, just five national titles were not claimed by more than one team.

It’s not even unprecedented to have a split in the era of the unified postseason, which began 20 years ago with the Bowl Championship Series. After the 2003 season, one-loss Southern California was not invited to the B.C.S. title game. It beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl and was voted No. 1 in the final A.P. poll. The Trojans claim that season’s title alongside the B.C.S. winner, Louisiana State, which beat Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.

The case against Central Florida’s championship is clear, of course. Its league, the American Athletic Conference, may like to call itself the sixth power conference. But college football’s five major leagues have magnitudes more money to spend on coaches and facilities, and this nearly always translates to better recruits and better teams.

The widely respected Sagarin rankings, which attempt to rate teams according to the strength of their schedule, rank Central Florida No. 13. That is partly the result of some close margins: the Knights beat South Florida and Memphis by just 7 points each, both times at home, the latter in double-overtime. And it is partly the result of a schedule deemed to be in the bottom half of the F.B.S. in terms of strength.

In the past, teams that claimed disputed national titles would point to some ranking that named them No. 1. You may not remember the Houlgate System, for instance, but Notre Dame could cite it as the basis for their 1927 national title. It’s a safe bet no such poll would put Central Florida at the top this season.

Alternatively: Who cares? Minnesota, Stanford and Tennessee are all seen as having rightful claims to the 1940 title, Jenkins noted, even though Minnesota played just eight games (and no bowl) and Tennessee actually lost its final game, the Sugar Bowl. The team that beat it, Boston College, finished fifth in the final A.P. poll — which, as was the case for decades, was taken before the bowls.

An article on Boston College’s website describes the Eagles’ “rightful claim to at least a share” of the title. Surely Central Florida’s publications won’t be far behind.