Pictured above: Florida State celebrating their ACC Championship victory and their undefeated season, with the #13 jersey being a reference to injured QB Jordan Travis (picture from the New York Times)
On December 3, 2023, the College Football Playoff selection show aired on ESPN at noon, picking the four teams that would be playing in the annual playoff bracket to crown the 2023 national champions. The four teams that would be competing on New Year’s were named: Michigan, Washington, Texas, and Alabama. Michigan slid up to be named the number one ranked team in the country as a result of Georgia’s polarizing 27-24 loss to Alabama in the 2023 SEC Championship game.
While the bracket created by the Committee is incredibly exciting and offers an entertaining slate of college football, many NCAA fans are upset at the lack of inclusion of the Florida State Seminoles, who won the ACC Championship game against Louisville and finished their season 13-0. With their denial into the playoff, Florida State became the first undefeated Power 5 team to miss the College Football Playoff since its implementation in 2014. Florida State held the number 4 ranking in the country before their ACC Championship win and seemed to be a lock for the Playoff.
Florida State’s quarterback Jordan Travis, who was in consideration for the Heisman Trophy, suffered a gruesome broken leg injury against North Alabama on November 18. Despite the injury, Travis was still named ACC Player of the Year, and FSU won two games after the injury. Backup QB Tate Rodemaker would suffer a concussion in a win against Florida. Relying on their true freshman Brock Glenn, the committee simply did not see excitement in an FSU team without their star QB or backup. The snub led to Jordan Travis stating, via X, “I wish my leg broke earlier in the season so y’all could see this team is much more than the quarterback. I thought results matter. 13-0 and this roster matches up across any team in those top 4 rankings.”
Pictured above: The Florida State team reacting to their snub (picture from Larry Brown Sports)
FSU head coach Mike Norvell was extremely frustrated with FSU’s exclusion. “I am disgusted and infuriated with the committee’s decision today to have what was earned on the field taken away because a small group of people decided they knew better than the results of the games,” Norvell stated. “What is the point of playing games? Do you tell players it is OK to quit if someone goes down? Do you not play a senior on Senior Day for fear of injury? Where is the motivation to schedule challenging nonconference games? We are not only an undefeated P5 conference champion, but we also played two P5 non-conference games away from home and won both of them. I don’t understand how we are supposed to think this is an acceptable way to evaluate a team. … What happened today goes against everything that is true and right in college football.”
Michael Alford, the athletic director of FSU, put it best in a quote from ESPN: “The argument of whether a team is the ‘most deserving OR best’ is a false equivalence. It renders the season up to yesterday irrelevant and significantly damages the legitimacy of the College Football Playoff… The committee failed college football today.”
ESPN states that “no team ranked outside the top six of the second-to-last CFP rankings had ever jumped into the final four. Alabama and Texas both accomplished that feat Sunday.” Despite the upset that Alabama had over Georgia, some believe the involvement of Alabama in this year’s Playoff is fixed or a result of bias.
ESPN analyst Booger McFarland even went as far as to state FSU’s exclusion was a “travesty to the sport.”
Pictured above: Georgia coach Kirby Smart (picture from 247Sports)
After Alabama’s upset over Georgia in the SEC title game, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart had his own words for the selection committee. Georgia’s number 1 ranking before the loss, a ranking they held nearly the entire year, was put into consideration by Smart. Smart stated, “So you’re going to tell me somebody’s sitting in the committee room and doesn’t think that that Georgia team is not one of the best four teams? I’m not sure they’re in the right profession, because it’s a really good football team, it’s a really talented football team, it’s a really balanced football team. They have to make that decision. But it’s the best four teams, and that’s critical.”
Georgia had beaten multiple ranked teams this season and, once again, held the number 1 ranking a majority of the year. Some college football fans even believe if Georgia was included in the Playoff, they would have a major shot to win the whole thing for the third year in a row. One loss, at the wrong time, shoots Georgia straight out of contention. However, the SEC always finds their way for a spot in the Playoff, so if Georgia’s one loss bounces them out, Alabama surely had to get in. And that’s exactly what happened.
As the 12-team playoff approaches for the 2024 season, college football fans wonder what would have happened if the CFP adopted an emergency 6-team playoff, to account for the multitude of great, and legit, teams standing atop the rankings this year. Despite the snubs of FSU and Georgia, and a seeming flaw becoming glaring in the wake of only four teams being able to compete for a championship, the 2023 Playoff will surely be entertaining and unpredictable.