College Football Crosses Rubicon in Leaving Florida State Out of Playoff
When the College Football Playoff committee decided to leave Florida State out of this year's playoff, it signified the continued destruction of the sport's traditional values.
There is no coming back from this.
College football will never fully recover from the College Football Playoff committee’s decision to leave Florida State out of this year’s tournament. We have crossed the Rubicon and burnt the bridge to a crisp.
The undefeated ACC Champion Seminoles did everything they possibly could this season. They walloped a talented LSU team to start the year on a neutral field, beat eight different bowl-eligible opponents, rallied around their backup quarterback and eventually their third-string freshman to win the conference outright.
Florida State didn’t lose a single game this year, in what’s claimed to be a “Power 5” conference. Teams with that distinction have never been left out of the College Football Playoff — until now.
Rather than reward Florida State for their undefeated season, the committee rewarded two one-loss conference champions — Texas and Alabama. Both teams picked up impressive wins this year — Alabama defeated the two-time defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship, and Texas beat that Alabama team in Tuscaloosa by 10 points.
The committee’s decision to put Texas and Alabama into the playoff was entirely subjective. The committee, and their defenders, claim that Florida State isn’t the same team they were before Jordan Travis broke his leg, and therefore do not deserve a chance to go 15-0 this season.
Maybe Travis was right — maybe he should’ve broken his leg sooner. Or, maybe he should have just lied about it.
While the committee deserves scorn, we should all take a look inward at how we helped create a system in which an undefeated Power 5 opponent could be left out of the national championship race.
Fans, myself included, ridiculed the Bowl Championship Series system for years. The BCS aimed to quantify each team through a single metric, thus helping to add an objective standard to the process of selecting a national champion. The top two teams were determined by simple numbers, and we played the game to see who the winner was.
Now, playing games is irrelevant. Never mind that Texas and Alabama both lost once this season — the committee knows that they’re better than Florida State.
The only thing the committee actually knows is that a foursome of Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama will generate massive television ratings. The College Football Playoff, partially created and owned by ESPN, gave us the best grouping they could to add to the entertainment value.
They did so by adding one current and one future SEC team over another Power 5 team, while preparing to start their television rights deal with the SEC. Who could have seen this coming?
The College Football Playoff is a sham. Expanding the end-of-season tournament to 12 teams solves nothing — the television executives committee will still subjectively determine seeding, as well as the final at-large spots. Are you excited to argue about teams ranked 10th through 13th?
Whether you are or not, it is coming. Until the powerbrokers in college football take back control of their sport from ESPN, FOX and CBS and return to some objective standard, the traditional values of college football — rivalries, conference championships and actually winning games — will mean nothing.
All that will matter is what will deliver with the key demographic.
But why would university presidents and athletic directors change anything? They’re all making millions and millions of dollars. Who cares if the players and fans suffer while the sport they love devolves into one big money grab?
The only way this gets fixed is if the fans stop watching. If the ratings go down, those holding the reins will be forced to change course.
But they know fans won’t stop watching. Ratings will continue to climb, media rights deals will get bigger and bigger, and winning games will matter less and less.
We have reached the point of no return. This is the sport that we’ve all created. Are you happy with it?
Spot on. Not happy about it. At this point, the corruption is just brazen. And unsustainable.