Nick Saban and Kirby Smart don’t mind UCF’s national title claim

The 13-0 UCF Knights are acting like they’re college football’s national champions. They’re not, really, because they didn’t make the Playoff. But their claim is no more dubious than these two dozen title claims by Power 5 schools. Their resume wouldn’t even be all that different than title game participant Alabama’s, if Bama won.

UCF’s title claim is good fun, if not much more than that. The head coaches in Monday night’s Bama-Georgia National Championship don’t really care for it.

Here’s Alabama coach Nick Saban on UCF’s claim, at the National Championship’s media day on Saturday, via transcription service ASAP Sports:

I’m fine with it. Doesn’t mean anything to anybody but them. I mean, I’m fine with it. I mean, they should be proud of the season they had. I know how hard it is for -- we’ve only had one undefeated season, I think, in all the time I’ve been around. It’s a difficult accomplishment. I think when players accomplish that, they should feel good about what they’ve accomplished.

That’s nice and all, but the meat and potatoes of Saban’s response is, “Doesn’t mean anything to anybody but them.” You can only read that line and get the gist.

UGA’s Kirby Smart had less to say.

“How do you feel about UCF declaring themselves national champs?” a reporter asked him.

“I think that’s UCF’s opinion,” Smart replied. He also said, “if I was at UCF, I’d probably do the same thing.”

Turns out neither Saban nor Smart will vote UCF No. 1 in the final Coaches Poll.