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CFP director says ‘there is a path’ for UCF toward playoff
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Unbeaten and uninvited last year, UCF could still find its way into this year’s College Football Playoff.
That is, if the Knights keep winning.
CFP executive director Bill Hancock said that the Knights — who have the nation’s longest winning streak at 16 games — will once again get evaluated the same way as every other team does when the committee that will ultimately decide the four playoff-bound teams this season gathers to crunch numbers and pick a field.
“Yes, there is a path,” Hancock said Thursday before attending the North Carolina-Miami game at Hard Rock Stadium, the site of one of this year’s CFP semifinals. “UCF got full consideration from the committee last year. I believe the committee at the end of the season had ranked UCF higher than the sports writers and the coaches had. So they got every consideration and they had a wonderful season.” It just wasn’t wonderful enough. UCF appeared in all six sets of CFP rankings last season — always as the lowest-ranked unbeaten. UCF was behind four twice-beaten teams in the first rankings a year ago, then eight in the second set of rankings. Eventually, the CFP selectors had UCF behind three-loss teams and ended up putting the Knights at No. 12 in the final ranking.
The Knights are 3-0 this season, coming off a win last week over Florida Atlantic.
The Cibola swim team keeps shaving time and winning meets as it goes into the second half of the season and as some swimmers keep their eye on making an appearance at state. The Raiders went 2-0 at a double-dual meet Thursday at Valley Aquatic Center against San Luis and Yuma High.
They won all but one event out of the 23 on the afternoon. Cibola beat the Crims 289-38 and the Sidewinders 285-57 with the combined scores. San Luis’ combined scored earned them a victory over Yuma High, 154-102.
“We are (cutting time). We have a group of kids who are working hard in practice,” Cibola coach Brad Broschat said. “We’re dropping times real well. It’s a good group.”
The Raiders won the boys meet 151-9 over Yuma High and 145-35 over San Luis, while they won the girls meet 138-29 over Yuma High and 140-22 over San Luis.
The Sidewinders beat the Criminals 105-11 for boys and the Criminals beat the Sidewinders 91-49 for girls.
Cibola sophomore Nathan Jarvis
One night after pulling off a furious rally to beat Calexico (Calif.), the Cibola volleyball team wasn’t able to do the same Thursday night against Imperial (Calif.) at Raider Gym.
Just like the night before, the Raiders dropped the first two sets against the Tigers. But after claiming the third set, they dropped the fourth to end up with an 1825, 22-25, 25-18, 18-25 defeat.
Cibola (4-8 AIA) was coming off a five-set victory over Calexico in which the cut 20 seconds off of his seed time in the 200 freestyle (2:06.38) to win, junior Jalen Hernandez won the 200 IM (2:16.12) and the 100 freestyle (54.60), freshman Gabriel McCallen won the 100 butterfly (1:04.50), sophomore Samuel Sorenson won the 100 backstroke (1:10.94), sophomore Raul Cruz Castorena won the 100 breaststroke (1:16.84) and sophomore Ayden Dusek won the diving event (163.50) and the 500 freestyle (5:41.25).
“Ayden worked really hard in the offseason,” Broschat said. “He’s swimming with a lot of confidence right now. He’s diving with a lot of confidence. I think he’ll be at the state meet for diving. He’ll be Raiders were blown out in the first two sets (12-25, 1325) before narrowly winning each of the final three (27-25, 29-27, 15-12).
“We tried to come back just like we did last night, but we had too many errors and they picked up their hitting,” Cibola coach Becky Anderson said of Imperial (11-7 overall). “They had quite a few kills in that third and fourth set.”
Senior outside hitters Honor Owens (12 kills, 8 digs) and Cielo Echols (11