Mac Engel
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
There was no good way to do this, and the committee did what had to be done by whacking not one but two members of La Cosa Nostra.
That’s what the 2023 College Football Playoff Selection Show felt like, a scene from the Martin Scorsese mob movie, Goodfellas.
That’s how it happens. That’s how fast it takes for a guy to get whacked. … If you’re part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they’re going to kill you, doesn’t happen that way.
If you have no investment in what transpired Sunday morning – i.e. you’re not an alum, your kid doesn’t go to school there, etc. – this version of college football’s reality TV show was the most entertaining since TCU and Baylor were left out in the first edition, in 2014.
Screwing over a TCU or a Baylor isn’t quite the same as doing the same thing to a Florida State. To a Georgia.
Your 2023 playoff teams are:
1. Michigan (13-0) vs. No. 4 Alabama (12-1) on Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl.
2. Washington (13-0) No. 3. Texas (12-1) on Jan. 1 in the Sugar Bowl.
The teams left out: No. 5 Florida State (13-0), No. 6 Georgia (12-1).
You see that correctly; an undefeated power team from a power conference is out in favor of two one-loss teams.
“It’s unfathomable that Florida State, an undefeated Power Five conference champion, was left out of the College Football Playoff,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement released shortly after Sunday morning’s announcement.
“Their exclusion calls into question the selection process and whether the Committee’s own guidelines were followed, including the significant importance of being an undefeated Power Five conference champion. … Florida State deserved better. College football deserved better.”
The committee’s guidelines are deliberately so vague a selection member can use virtually any factor to justify their decision.
There is little chance these playoff games will live up to the playoff debate. We will long remember this discussion more than we will the actual games.
Every single member of Florida State’s football team should opt out of its bowl game. Because there is, once again, no point in playing the game.
“For many of us,” Florida State athletic director Michael Alford said in a statement, “today’s decision by the committee has forever damaged the credibility of the institution of the College Football Playoff.”
Breaking news: the selection committee had credibility.
“And, saddest of all, it was self-inflicted,” he said. “They chose predictive competitiveness over proven performance. They have become a committee of prognosticators. They have abandoned their responsibility by discarding their purpose – to evaluate performance on the field.”
Grade A passive aggressive, condescending criticism. He’s only wrong about one detail in here; the group has been a committee of prognosticators since its inception.
Don’t waste your breath with the quarterback issue, which is considerable, for FSU. Because of injury FSU is down to its second or third-string quarterback, which is why the Noles are out.
FSU finish undefeated in a major conference; the Noles now moves ahead of TCU’s 2014 team as the gold standard for getting robbed of a playoff spot in the four-team playoff era.
Florida State becomes the first team to finish undefeated in a power conference to not be included in the playoffs; maybe that’s a banner?
College football remains the beauty contest that we can’t quit.
The only real surprise on Sunday morning was that both Ohio State and Notre Dame were left out of the final four-team college football playoff. One or both of these teams always seem to get in, regardless of records.
Once the final results from Saturday’s conference championship games were in, one of college football’s Rockefeller, du Pont or Walton families was going to be left out of the club.
Not inviting a 1-loss Texas, a 1-loss Alabama or a 1-loss Georgia to college football’s most exclusive party feels like slapping the face of royalty on the steps of Westminster Abbey, but the cartel had to get someone.
Bama’s win over No. 1 Georgia in the SEC championship game put the committee in this spot.
The committee relies on the tired, “Four best teams,” to explain these final rankings. “Four best teams” is a subjective sentence to “explain” whatever combination of numbers and “facts” a handful of people use to justify their selections.
“What is the point of playing games? Do you tell players it is okay to quit if someone goes down?” Florida State coach Mike Norvell said in a statement.
Alabama is not one of the four best teams, but it’s Bama so the Tide is one of the four best teams.
Using college football logic, which is a contradiction in terms, there was no way the cartel could win on Sunday. They are right just as much as they are wrong.
And, when reviewing the playoffs since this format began in 2014, seldom have they given us the “four best teams.” Remember, this committee gave us Notre Dame, twice, in the playoffs.
Across the board, with limited exception, the playoffs have been blowouts.
A person could easily make the case that Georgia is just as much “one of the four best” teams as Texas. Because the Bulldogs are one of the four best teams in the nation.
Two teams were guaranteed to be sick on Sunday morning. One of those teams should not have been the one that finished with zero losses.
With the playoff field expanding next season to 12 teams, what happened to Florida State on Sunday will not happen again.
But it happened on Sunday, which only illustrated what we already know: College football is a fun version of Real Housewives of Tuscaloosa, and the most important detail is not who you are but rather how you look.
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