At the very least, though UCF was/is the better team.
WMU won at Northwestern, a team that went bowling, barely lost at #6 Ohio State and finished #35 in the Sagarin ratings. It also hammered Illinois, who wasn't good, but WMU did what a good team is supposed to do in that situation even as a MAC school playing on the road in the Big 10.
UCF did have those back-to-back Top 25 wins against South Florida and Memphis, but those teams built their national rankings on the same middling American East schools by piling up mostly unimpressive wins. The AE is better than the MAC, but Memphis's best wins were over a couple six or seven-win teams, two of which were ranked at the time only to freefall well out of any ranking consideration; South Florida's only victory against a team better than 6-6 last season came against Stony Brook, an FCS school. Memphis finished #32 in Sagarin while USF was #41.
UCF was and is really good, but I don't think what they did in the regular season last year was notably better than what WMU did the season before, and both played really competitive New Year's Six games. WMU finished the season #21 in Sagarin after the Wisconisn loss; UCF finished #13 after the Auburn win. I'd assume they were even closer to the same spot before playing their respective bowl games.
I'm just for including teams like 2016 WMU, 2017/18 UCF, etc. in NYS bowl games and, if there is one, an expanded playoff. I don't think there should be a guaranteed spot for the best non-Power 5 team, but there should be if the best of that litter meets a certain threshold (undefeated and/or ranked #XX or better, etc.). I don't think it's bad for college football or competitive balance to give credit and exposure to teams and conferences like these.