Next yr, all this College Football Playoff arguing will likely be moot with the CFP increasing to 12 groups. Arguing over Nos. 3, 4 and 5 could be very totally different than 10, 11, 12 and 13. You lose your good thing about the doubt if you lose video games. Even in the SEC.
But this yr continues to be a four-team subject, and with so many variables factoring into the resolution, there’s a lot to dissect. And to state it plainly: the College Football Playoff committee got it mistaken. College soccer has, or a minimum of it used to have — up till proper now — the greatest common season in sports activities as a result of the video games mattered most. We have a smaller pattern dimension on this sport than in another.
To depart out an undefeated 13-0 Florida State staff in a Power 5 convention was the mistaken resolution.
Michigan and Washington, each undefeated with top-10 wins, had been the straightforward ones. The drawback for the College Football Playoff committee was that there have been three groups with official arguments for the remaining two slots.
Sorry, Georgia. You didn’t win your convention title, and on this format, that has to rely for one thing.
Booger McFarland just isn’t blissful that Alabama got into the CFP over an undefeated Florida State staff.
“To me, this is a travesty to the sport…One team has a loss, and that’s Alabama. One doesn’t in Florida State.” pic.twitter.com/3rhBvvpT1D
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 3, 2023
Alabama and the SEC are the proverbial elephant on this room. Nick Saban is the biggest coach of all time, and to me, this yr was the biggest teaching job he’s ever finished in-season. His staff got whipped at dwelling by Texas in Week 2 and didn’t look any higher scuffling with a middling USF staff the following week. But Jalen Milroe stored making huge strides and when it mattered most, he and the Tide made sufficient performs to knock off a Bulldogs staff that wasn’t anyplace close to as dominant because it was in its earlier two title seasons.
The drawback for Alabama — and the SEC — is the accomplice they’re about to usher in: Texas did beat Alabama convincingly in Tuscaloosa. That occurred, and there was nothing fluky about it.
The Longhorns, 12-1, had been the class of the Big 12. There wasn’t a second-best staff in the Big 12 this yr, however Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma, the staff Texas stumbled in opposition to and, as anticipated, Texas hammered the Cowboys Saturday. Remember, this was an Oklahoma State staff that went 9-3 and had misplaced by a mixed rating of 78-10 in opposition to South Alabama and UCF. That wasn’t going to assist Texas’ trigger, however will we simply neglect {that a} week in the past Alabama barely escaped in opposition to an Auburn staff that got blown out at dwelling the week earlier than by New Mexico State, 31-10?
The larger difficulty was with Florida State, the 13-0 Seminoles from the ACC. As everyone knows, FSU misplaced star quarterback Jordan Travis two weeks in the past. The Seminoles’ backup Tate Rodemaker, who had led them to a comeback win over Louisville a yr in the past when Travis had gotten harm, didn’t look nice in the regular-season finale at arch-rival Florida. He additionally sustained a concussion.
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips calls it “unfathomable” that Florida State was left out. “Florida State deserved better. College football deserved better.”
Statement from him: pic.twitter.com/3BYozQOSog
— Andrew Carter (@_andrewcarter) December 3, 2023
FSU’s third-stringer, Brock Glenn, had a shaky outing in the ACC Championship Game, however the protection was dominant. Led by Braden Fiske and Jared Verse, the Seminoles had 14 TFLs and 7 sacks and have become the first staff in 5 years to carry a Jeff Brohm offense underneath 200 whole yards. Not so coincidentally, that very same FSU protection started the yr by dominating LSU and the SEC’s largest star, Jayden Daniels, 45-24, and held the SEC and the nation’s No. 1 offense to its worst efficiency of the season.
FSU was the solely staff that held Daniels underneath 60 % passing in a recreation. Daniels ran for nearly 100 yards much less (99) in opposition to the Noles than when he performed the Crimson Tide.
The CFP rankings usually devolve into an argument over “best” versus “most deserving.” Best is often the get-out-of-jail free card every time your staff loses or has a nasty loss that it could’t clarify. Similar to the nonsense of, “Well, Vegas would make so-and-so more than a touchdown favorite against them.” Great. But inform that to Washington. The Huskies had been nearly a double-digit underdog in opposition to Oregon final week, a staff they’d already overwhelmed this yr. … Well, the Huskies beat the Ducks once more.
I get it. The SEC has been the most dominant convention in school soccer for the previous 20 years. But this yr hasn’t been like these different years in the event you’ve been paying consideration. It’s merely been a down yr for the SEC. The ACC really went 6-4 in opposition to the SEC this yr. If this was a one-loss FSU staff, I’d say the Seminoles didn’t earn their approach in, however they did. Texas mustn’t have been left out both for a staff it beat in its personal place.
As colleague David Ubben wrote Saturday evening, the video games should matter. What’s the level of taking part in them if we’re going to try to rationalize them away?
(Top photograph Florida State: John Byrum / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Images)
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