Ignore the Voters Who Put Central Florida No. 1 Over Alabama

Alabama won the national championship by defeating Georgia in the national championship game on Monday night. Despite this, four voters in the Associated Press poll put Central Florida No. 1. Fifty-seven did the sensible and responsible thing with the Tide in the top slot.

Media outlets responded by scrambling to amplify the voices of the four dissenters without doing the same for the majority. In doing so, they played right into the hands of Central Florida voters, giving them more power and attention than is warranted.

AP voters have carte blanche to turn in any ballot they like. That doesn’t mean that other media has to grant equal time to advocacy voters. Voting Central Florida at No. 1 over Alabama would qualify as such.

These four votes were rendered meaningless. The Knights can claim their own make-believe national championship all they want, but any real history will reflect that Alabama was the true champion.

By that metric, these UCF votes were a hollow gesture, only carrying meaning if they could be used a springboard for a cause — an eight-team playoff, a protest against the current inequitable system, a reason to get more attention with a column explaining the vote.

Fair or otherwise, Alabama is this year’s rightful champion, having survived the college football playoff. Wishing otherwise doesn’t make it so.

I do not begrudge these four individuals for voting their conscious or even voting for the furtherance of their cause. But if one feels as I do — that Alabama is No. 1 and there is no reasonable room for debate — the best thing to do would have been let these writers’ votes slip by into irrelevance.