The College Football Playoff outrage still centers around a team that played its third-team quarterback, struggled offensively, but ultimately won by double digits. Yes, times were tough for Alabama against South Florida on Sept. 16.
The Crimson Tide has just been worked by Texas the previous week at Bryant-Denny Stadium and the decision was made to sit quarterback Jalen Milroe. Nick Saban played Ty Simpson and Tyler Buchner instead. It did not go well, and it looked even worse. But, hey, a win is a win, right?
Right?
Don’t ask Florida State that question right now. You might get punched. In what some understandably consider a crime against (football) nature, FSU became the first undefeated Power Five conference champion to be left out of the playoff. It was all a matter of timing. The CFP Selection Committee selectively chose to remember FSU playing its third-string quarterback on Saturday, struggling offensively, but winning by double digits.
It was the difference in the Seminoles not playing for a national championship, and implications of the decision will be felt into the future.
It may hasten FSU’s desperation to leave the ACC knowing the expanded playoff is going to mean expanded opportunities for the SEC and Big Ten. It may change injury reporting. What point is there in being honest about player statuses going forward? Mike Norvell would have been better off listing quarterback Jordan Travis as a game-time decision the last two weeks. Alabama chose to hold out an ineffective Milroe. FSU didn’t have a choice.
And that “0” at the end of FSU’s record? Apparently, that doesn’t matter. It didn’t in the last four-team CFP — and that’s part of the outrage. The knock on the SEC groupthink over the years by outside (read: neutral) observers has been the sense of entitlement at times. It’s like everyone else is playing frisbee golf compared to real-man football down South.
That’s fine if you’re comparing to Alabama to Liberty or Cincinnati. This was Florida State — with a national championship pedigree — that won all its games. One of only four teams to do so. It beat two SEC teams along the way and sported a top-15 defense.
Ask yourself, if Alabama was undefeated and limped to the finish with two backup quarterbacks, would it have been treated the same way? Of course not. This was the committee’s own groupthink that begged this question for the first time:…
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