As with every December, the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee sat down for their most important meeting of the year: Selection Sunday. However, this year, the committee boldly left out the wrong team.
On Dec. 2, the Alabama Crimson Tide defeated the first-ranked Georgia Bulldogs with a score of 27-24. The win knocked Georgia out of playoff contention but resurrected Alabama’s hopes after the team had been out of the running for weeks. With the first three teams in the tournament practically being a lock, the decision for the fourth spot should have come down to Alabama or the Texas Longhorns.
Instead, the committee decided to let them both in, eliminating the undefeated ACC champions: the Florida State Seminoles.
Florida State University (FSU) is the first undefeated Power Five (P5) team to not make the playoffs in college football history. The main factor for this decision can be pointed back to starting quarterback, Jordan Travis, who suffered a broken leg in Week 12. The committee believed that the Seminoles were no longer the same strong team that they once were, as player availability plays a role in their selection, and therefore were not worthy enough to face teams such as the Michigan Wolverines or the Washington Huskies, two other undefeated teams who were selected for the tournament.
Following the selection, FSU’s head coach, Mike Norvell, released a statement saying he was “disgusted and infuriated,” while FSU’s athletic director Michael Alford said that leaving the team out is “an unwarranted injustice that shows complete disregard and disrespect for their performance.” Even Travis apologized for breaking his leg, saying he wished it happened “earlier in the season” in hopes that the committee would have seen this Seminoles team in the right light.
While the decision to leave out FSU is nothing short of infuriating, it’s not the first instance of lesser-deserving teams sneaking into the playoffs. Last year, Texas Christian University (TCU) secured the third seed despite losing in their conference championship game. But, as the committee has reiterated excessively lately, members only let in the four best teams in the country.
TCU did end up beating second-ranked Michigan, but they got rocked by Georgia in the championship game.
This trend can even be seen as far back as 2015, where the same thing happened with Michigan State University (MSU), who made the playoffs despite losing to the six-loss Nebraska Cornhuskers during the regular season. MSU was a P5 conference champion and argued to be one of the four best teams in the country.
They were let in. Then MSU promptly lost to Alabama in the semifinals 38-0.
Blowout games like these only lead fans to click off college games to find something else on TV. No one wants to watch a game that is decided by the first quarter–especially the NCAA, considering it loses money every time someone tunes out.
If the committee is doing its job and letting in the four best teams, shouldn’t these games be more competitive?
Next year, the playoffs will expand to 12 teams, so the committee will face little-to-no repercussions for this decision. Though there could have been a thrilling, SEC-less playoff bracket this year, the committee has ensured the conference’s presence for years to come, as a team from the SEC is sure to qualify with more spots open next season.
Considering the committee almost openly announced that losses actually don’t matter, who really knows which more preferred teams will show up in the added vacancies for years to come.
The decision to keep undefeated FSU out of championship contention is one that may fade from the minds of fans as the months go on, but those who truly care will not forget. Fans of the team’s phenomenal season will forever be the first to recognize how 13 CFP committee members irreversibly changed college football for the worse.
