It’s certainly been a satisfying last few days for Danny White.
He watched from the bleachers a few days ago as the baseball team at his new program, the Tennessee Volunteers, advanced to the College World Series for the first time in 16 years. And he watched from afar as coaches, administrators and fans at his old program, the UCF Knights, celebrated the news that the College Football Playoff will likely be expanded to 12 teams — a groundbreaking development that White himself was instrumental in making happen.
If White, UCF’s former athletics director, isn’t the father of the likely new 12-team playoff, he is at least the annoying kid brother of the proposed expanded field — the stubbon, steadfast squirt who bugged and badgered, heckled and harassed his older siblings in the Power 5 into finally acquiescing and saying, “OK, OK, if we let you come play with us, will you please just shut up?!!!”
Even though the news of the 12-team playoff format broke last week, it should be noted that the College Football Playoff’s management committee began seriously discussing expansion more than two years ago when White was screaming the loudest amid his phenomenal six-year run as UCF’s athletics director.
While he is no longer at UCF, White was ecstatic last week when he learned that the probable new playoff format would assure spots to the six highest-ranked conference champions, which means at least one non-Power 5 league champ will be guaranteed a playoff berth.
“I’m always going to be a 1,000-percent supporter and fan of UCF, and this is huge for UCF,” White says. “I love what this does for the Knights because they’re positioned as the front-runner to take that [Group of 5] spot in the playoff. It’s great for UCF, great for the American Athletic Conference and great for college football.”
Isn’t it ironic that so many within the college football establishment are now going gaga about how the new format will get exciting new blood involved in the playoff, but four years ago some of these same people were denigrating White for demanding playoff expansion to allow more access to non-traditional programs such as UCF. When White declared UCF’s undefeated 2017 team as “national champions,” he became a lightning rod for college football snobs in the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, et al. who were offended by the audacity of White’s proclamation.
White didn’t give a damn and stood his ground on his rock-solid reasoning: UCF was the only undefeated team in the country and the Knights beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl — the same Auburn now coached by current UCF coach Gus Malzahn and the same Auburn that beat the two national championship participants (Alabama and Georgia) during that 2017 regular season.
Nonetheless, White was ridiculed by Paul Finebaum on the SEC Network and by the legions of other pompous Power 5 elitists. When White declared the Knights as national champions and called the four-team playoff nothing more than a “Power 5 Invitational” — an exclusive championship tournament for the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 — Finebaum said White’s claims were “buffoonery” and arrogantly advised UCF to “know your place.”
“I just felt back then that I was in the position that I needed to fight for our team ‚” White says now. “I didn’t take the disrespect I received personally, but it offended me that our program and our conference were being disrespected. There were some below-the-belt potshots, but I believed in what I was saying about what was best for the future of the sport. I guess when we look back, history will tell us who was right.”
When asked if he takes any special pride about being one of the driving influences behind playoff expansion, White, as you might expect, deflected the kudos.
“I don’t think it’s fair for me to get credit,” White says. “I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to speak out if it wasn’t for those teams, players and coaches. That 2017 team was special and that 2018 team; just imagine the pressure those players and coaches were under. They were coming off an undefeated season with an entirely new coaching staff and they were expected to go unbeaten again. And they did! Those two teams should get all the credit for giving us the platform to speak out on their behalf.”
I still remember after the 2018 season when Josh Heupel’s first UCF team completed a second-consecutive unbeaten regular season and UCF wasn’t even considered for the four-team playoff despite a national-best 25-game unbeaten streak. There were the critics who told White that UCF needed to beef up its non-conference schedule if the Knights ever wanted to make the four-team field. White just scoffed at the critics and continued to blast away at them.
“We could schedule the San Francisco 49ers, the Miami Dolphins and Chicago Bears and they’re still not going to put us in a four-team playoff,” White told me in an interview back then. “We’re realists about that, and that’s why we’ve been pushing for an adequate postseason … I’m not going to waste any time trying to schedule for a four-team playoff because it’s not really a playoff, it’s a [Power 5] invitational. A four-team playoff is not an adequate postseason.
“We’re not interested in listening to people’s [cockamamie: my word, not his] ideas on how we can get into a four-team playoff. There are a lot of people who had ideas after our first undefeated season and said that if we just did it again, then we’d be in the playoff. We weren’t even considered after going undefeated for a second consecutive year.”
Wouldn’t it be fitting if three years from now, White’s old program at UCF is playing his new program at Tennessee for the national championship? It would be both a dream come true and a nightmare all rolled into one for White. He compared such a scenario to last basketball season when the Tennessee basketball team played the Florida Gators, coached by his brother Mike White.
“It would be a bittersweet experience,” White said. “Obviously, I’m a competitive person and I want Tennessee to win every game we play, but I want UCF to win every game it plays, too.”
If a UCF-UT title game ever were to happen, we should refer to the showdown as the “Danny Duel” in honor of the man who once proclaimed UCF as the mythical national champions but has made it possible for the Knights to perhaps someday become the legitimate ones.
