What? That just simply is not true. UCF played Ohio State in 2012 and Stanford in 2015.
Just this year AAC teams played games against Oklahoma, TCU, and two games against Notre Dame. Last year AAC teams had games against Penn State, Florida State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Oklahoma....and in both of those seasons I'm just listing P5 opponents that ended the regular season in the CFP top 15.
UCF and AAC teams definitely do have the ability to schedule quality P5 teams but instead you scheduled Georgia Tech and Maryland. You have nobody to blame or complain to but yourself.
They make way more money that way. If I'm a large school and I book an FCS school for a one off and pay them $1 million I get to keep whatever profit from ticket sales I have except for that $1 million, and then I get to do it all over again next year. If I schedule a 1 for 1 with an AAC school I'm loosing an entire game's profits for that away year. It doesn't make financial sense. It has nothing to do with being afraid to play you and everything to do with money. Your solution for that is to go to them or schedule neutral site games, you're in Florida, there are plenty of good neutral site venues and three prestigious power programs within a few hours drive of your campus. Make it work.
The bottom line is that you guys went 6-6 last year as a G5 school. String together a 10+ win seasons and play some good teams and your chances improve. You did not deserve to be in the playoff this year.