This sport’s identity crisis has existed since the College Football Playoff began a decade ago, but we’ve never had to come to grips with it the way we did Sunday.
The identity crisis? If the teams playing for the national championship should be the best or the most deserving. In the nine years leading up to this season, the best and fittest have seamlessly become one, resulting in cut-and-dried decisions about which teams will make the field.
In the final season of the four-team era — before it expands to 12 in 2024 — the CFP committee is charged with a tough decision guaranteed to result in a deserving team feeling cheated. The committee, for the first time, really has to choose what it values more – the teams that get it or the teams that look the best on TV.
Florida State, the most deserving, became the first unbeaten Power 5 conference champion left in the field. The Seminoles were the ones left feeling cheated.
And in that one decision, the committee doesn’t just pick teams in a particular year. It revealed to the world the ugly truth about college football — the sport is a beauty contest where decisions about which teams can win the national title are sometimes made in a cozy hotel boardroom in Grapevine, Texas, as in the actual field. .
The Playoff field is as follows: 1. Michigan, 2. Washington, 3. Texas, 4. Alabama.
Michigan and Washington made it through the season unscathed. Texas lost a nail-biter in its rivalry game with Oklahoma, and the Longhorns, wait for it, beat Alabama.
We wouldn’t be having this discussion if Florida State’s star quarterback, Jordan Travis, hadn’t broken his leg two weeks ago. But the Seminoles team that beat Louisville 16-6 in the ACC Championship Game is relying on a third-string quarterback. The win was far from impressive.
ruined heartbroken. In utter disbelief rn, I wish I had broken my leg earlier in the season so you could see more of this team than the quarterback. I thought results mattered. 13-0 and this roster matches any team in the top 4 rankings. I’m so sorry. Go Noles!
— Jordan Travis (@jordantrav13) December 3, 2023
The committee, knowing it was unfair to break someone’s heart, decided to destroy Florida State. In that room Saturday night, committee members decided the Seminoles weren’t good enough for us.
That’s not what sports should be. And with the end of the four-team CFP era after this season, fans will view it as a broken system that needs to be reformed rather than the first frontier of the sport’s modernization.
It’s easy to understand why the committee couldn’t choose between Alabama and Texas. Alabama is a one-loss SEC champion that beat Georgia on Saturday, ending the Bulldogs’ 29-game winning streak. Texas, a one-loss Big 12 champion, beat Alabama by 10 points in Tuscaloosa in September.
Many fans expected the SEC to be left out entirely for the first time, but the committee — charged with picking the “best teams” — couldn’t ignore what the ultra-talented Crimson Tide had accomplished. But if Alabama goes, how can the committee leave the team that beat it?
Incapable.
This is probably the path of least resistance. Outside of Florida State fans, the general population will continue to be convinced that the Playoff semifinals will be more entertaining with higher-level teams. The best teams, as they say, win.
The problem with picking the best is that it’s completely subjective and ultimately misleading because it’s a sport that regularly features unexpected results and unpredictable runs. The last time a team relied on a third-string quarterback heading into the College Football Playoff — Ohio State in the inaugural season of a four-team field — won a national title.
The difference between these Buckeyes and this Florida State team is that Ohio State won the Big Ten title game that year 59-0. Florida State is in a close game at Louisville that, frankly, isn’t an enjoyable watch for those who love the thrill of big-time offense. Perception, wrong, became reality.
“Florida State is a different team,” CFP committee chairman Boo Corrigan said after the field was revealed. “Look at who they are as a team without Jordan Travis – they’re a different team.”
That’s a well-informed opinion that’s probably true. This, however, is not a fact. You can make the case that Florida State is so good that it won a Power 5 conference championship game with a true freshman quarterback. In the CFP, Florida State would have gotten second-string quarterback Tate Rodemaker with a month to prepare for a semifinal game.
Florida State was robbed.
And its head coach did not hide his disappointment.
“I am disgusted and outraged by the committee’s decision today to take the earnings off the field because a small group of people decided they knew better the results of the games,” Mike Norvell said in a statement. “What’s the point of playing?”
As hard as it is, the right thing for the committee to do is to leave Alabama. Most of us know in our gut that the Crimson Tide – the best team, on paper, in the sport — is one of the four best teams. Alabama is definitely equipped to win the whole thing.
But Alabama — like peers Georgia and Ohio State, teams with tons of talent on their rosters — lost a game (at home). Better teams have been left behind in the past than this Alabama team because losses have consequences.
Alabama losing to Texas is of no consequence because we love the SEC and what it means to beat Georgia. It didn’t matter that Alabama — though considered a completely different team last September — lost to the Longhorns. That game could have been a Playoff game in September. It turned out to be an exhibition.
Many people are against expanding the field to 12 because of the sanctity of the regular season. But if regular season games won’t matter when it comes to choosing the final four, then there are no consequences for expanding to 12.
The regular season didn’t decide who made it this year. Thirteen people were made.
Games are important. The results are not.
(Photo by Mike Norvell: Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images)
