The matchup we’ve been waiting for since, well, basically as soon as the 2017 college football season ended, will finally be played — UCF vs. Alabama! On Wednesday afternoon, the series was officially announced by the Knights:
UCF vs. Bama? You got it.
— UCF Knights (@UCFKnights) May 16, 2018
The ink is dry.
https://t.co/WGYXa5fXsB pic.twitter.com/MEkwSHqEkj
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention — this series is in basketball, not football, you guys. I’m sorry, I probably should have mentioned this before, shouldn’t I have? Oh well, must have slipped my mind! This game will be played in November of this year at UCF’s home arena.
But as far as the football series goes, it’s been a pretty hot topic of conversation, given the Knights’ self-proclaimed national title last season, and Alabama’s national title victory over Georgia in January. UCF fans even paid for this billboard in Tuscaloosa urging Alabama to schedule the Knights two days after the title game:
UCF with a message for @AlabamaFTBL on McFarland Blvd. in Tuscaloosa. @BamaOnLine247 @Tide1029fm pic.twitter.com/J1ijRMywWq
— Travis Reier (@travisreier) January 10, 2018
But it hasn’t been all UCF — Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne took this shot at the Knights after the Tide’s women’s basketball team defeated UCF in the NIT tournament:
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UCF had a parade at Disney World to celebrate its claimed title. Knights AD Danny White subsequently responded.
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And most recently, none other than Alabama head coach Nick Saban took one of his harshest shots at the Knights’ title claim in an interview with 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 Sports. “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.”
It’s clear the hype surrounding just the possibility of this series hasn’t died down over the last four months or so. Hopefully, both ADs can make the football game happen sooner rather than later. For now, we’ll just have to settle for the basketball game on Nov. 29, 2018.