ATLANTA - With his 13-0 season complete, Central Florida coach Scott Frost was willing to talk about life on the outside of the College Football Playoff looking in.
Frost's Knights entered Monday afternoon's 34-27 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl victory over Auburn just 12th in the final playoff rankings. By comparison, Auburn entered with a 10-3 record and a No. 7 ranking.
"Going through the season, I was afraid to say much about the rankings and everything because I'm a little superstitious," Frost said. "When a coach starts running his mouth, that's when you lose the next game, but it wasn't right. I was watching every week, the committee sitting in a room and deciding that this two-loss team must be better than UCF because UCF is in the American (Athletic Conference), or that this three-loss team must be better than UCF."
Auburn, despite losing at Clemson in September and at LSU in October, got to No. 2 in the playoff rankings by knocking off CFP No. 1 Georgia and No. 1 Alabama in November. UCF played just one team from a Power Five conference, routing Maryland 38-10 on Sept. 23.
The Knights had a Sept. 16 game against Georgia Tech canceled due to Hurricane Irma.
"Auburn is a great team," Frost said. "I am not taking anything away from them. I'll give them a ton of credit, but these guys deserve everything they get, and they deserve more credit from the committee than what they got."
The right decision
Frost announced after last month's AAC title-game win over Memphis that he had accepted the Nebraska job but that his intention was to stay with the Knights through Monday.
The Cornhuskers missed out on a bowl game this season, but Frost had to juggle recruiting for Nebraska with coaching the Knights.
"This makes it all worth it," Frost said. "Through this whole process, I tried to do everything the right way the best that I knew how. It was the right thing to do to come coach these guys. I'm so happy for these guys."
Johnson's afternoon
Southeastern Conference offensive player of the year Kerryon Johnson finished his season by rushing 22 times for 71 yards and a touchdown. Johnson left the Iron Bowl in the fourth quarter with a shoulder injury that hindered him against Georgia in the league championship game, when he had 13 carries for 44 yards.
"I thought Kerryon was fairly close to 100 percent today," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "We didn't do a very good job blocking up front. There were a lot of times that they had some stunts early on, and they got us before we got going. I thought Kerryon had some very good runs and some tough runs, and there weren't a whole lot of creases like there normally are."
Johnson will decide in upcoming days whether to return for his senior season.
Carlson's finale
Monday was the final Auburn performance for SEC all-time leading kicker Daniel Carlson, who extended his career total to 480 points. Former Georgia kicker Blair Walsh (2008-11) is next on the league charts with 412.
Carlson wound up making all 198 extra-point attempts in his career, and he finished with 92 made field goals, including a 13-of-21 clip on attempts from 50 yards or longer.
Tiger tales
Auburn scored first in 12 of 14 games this season, with the wins over Georgia and Texas A&M being the exceptions. Junior receiver Ryan Davis extended the school's single-season reception record to 84 with eight catches for 47 yards. Auburn became just the eighth team in SEC history to rush for 3,000 yards and pass for 3,000 yards in a single season. Junior receiver Will Hastings set career bests with six catches for 117 yards.