Due in large part to starting quarterback Jordan Travis’s season-ending injury and the offense’s struggles without him, the College Football Playoff Committee controversially decided to choose a one-loss Alabama team over the previously undefeated Florida Seminoles for the final postseason berth this year.
Travis seemed to take a jab at the Crimson Tide and the CFP Committee after Michigan defeated Alabama in overtime at the Rose Bowl, 27-20, even though Florida State would later lose to Georgia 63-3 in the Orange Bowl:
After being thoroughly destroyed by Georgia, Florida State didn’t exactly seem like a team that should have been in the CFP. In that sense, Travis might receive some backlash for it.
Conversely, opt-outs, injuries, and transfers kept 29 scholarship players from Florida State from the game.
After the game, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart told reporters, “People need to see what happened tonight, and they need to fix this,” appearing to poke fun at the general trend of opt-outs in bowl games and early departures through transfer portals. “It must be rectified. The fact that they have a strong football programme and squad and are in this situation is really regrettable.”
Meanwhile, Florida State head coach Mike Norvell appeared to imply that his team’s wave of opt-outs was a result of the CFP Committee’s decision to reject Florida State.
“Many of the young men on our team had to make difficult decisions,” he said to reporters. “We suffered harm. When you follow our instructions,
There’s also the question of whether the outcomes of the Orange or Rose Bowls should serve as any kind of support for the CFP Committee’s judgements.
Notwithstanding the outcome, those who are against FSU’s exclusion from the playoffs will contend that the Seminoles should have been chosen over Texas and Alabama, two teams with a single loss each, because they had an undefeated season and an ACC championship. For those people, FSU’s overall record was more important than Travis’ injury or the team’s offensive struggles.
And those who are in favour of the choice will keep saying that, due in large part to the Travis injury, both Texas and Alabama were better teams playing better football at the time of the selection.
The judge is you. Travis and other FSU supporters undoubtedly had strong feelings regarding Monday’s outcome, and it’s difficult to hold them responsible.
In all honesty, though, the only reasonable response to this argument is that the 12-team playoff system will be a vast improvement over the current disaster. An expanded playoff field would have solved the whole thing on the field. We can’t wait for next year.
