As the holiday season comes around, many of us are looking forward to the holidays and spending time with those that are important to us. Many of us are also looking forward to the college football playoff, in which the four most deserving teams were selected to compete. Except this year, they were not.
This year, the four teams selected to go to the playoff were Texas, Washington, Michigan, and Alabama. This year there were three undefeated power five teams; Michigan, Washington, and Florida State. Notice Alabama and Texas on that list? Neither do I. Texas and Alabama were both one loss teams, so why did they get in over Florida State? Because Alabama is an SEC team, and the CFP committee has a belief that there must be an SEC team in the playoff no matter what. So why did Texas get in?
Because Alabama’s only loss was to Texas, so to get their SEC team in, the committee snubbed an undefeated power five team and allowed in a Texas team that didn’t have a particularly strong Big 12 schedule and had lost to a 10-2 Oklahoma team. Now just to be clear, I have no problem with Alabama being in. I do in fact believe that they were one of the four best teams in college football this year. But Texas? No.
When the committee released their decision, they stated that part of the decision to leave out Florida State was that star Quarterback Jordan Travis was out for the season with a leg injury and they did not believe Florida State could compete without him, and outstanding defense aside, this is a decent point, except for the fact that they completely contradicted it later. When the committee selected the rest of the New Year’s Six bowl games, they gave the group of five spot to Liberty over SMU. Liberty was 13-0 with the weakest schedule in the country, while SMU was 11-2, with losses at TCU and at Oklahoma and both ended the season as conference champions, with SMU beating ranked Tulane and Liberty beating unranked New Mexico State. Anyone who watched the two teams play would have seen that if they went head to head, SMU would have stomped Liberty 49-0. But when the committee announced the group of five spot going to Liberty and were asked about it, they responded that Liberty was undefeated, so they had to give it to them, which is the exact opposite of the reasoning they used with Florida State.
This perfectly illustrates the inconsistency of the CFP committee, and is something that must be corrected if college football is to continue to be fair and just to all teams involved.
Jim • Dec 19, 2023 at 9:54 pm
In their last regular season game Alabama needed a miracle to beat Auburn at the end of the game. Auburn? – at best a so-so team!. Herb says ” there are 5 o 6 teams better than FSU that’s why they voted them out..they are not good enough”. He said “I watch 10 to 15 games a week , I know”. Fsu beat one of the better SEC teams, LSU, By 20 point…20 points. Tell me Herb, since you are such an expert, what was it you saw about Alabama in the Alabama/ Auburn game, that made them better than FSU in the FSU /LSU game?
John • Dec 17, 2023 at 4:10 pm
They need someone on the committee who is in touch with reality to be able to speak week to week through the process. Even if you justify their decisions, I do not, the information they share leaves so much room for speculation, it turned out to be very damaging in this case.
Osceola • Dec 17, 2023 at 8:55 am
The day the SEC signed with ESPN was the day college football died. It’s about money, not integrity. It’s a business now, not a sport. Alabama is the cash cow for ESPN. Nick Saban is a God who is worshipped by all of the ESPN analysts. Kirk Herby and Paul Finebaum lick Saban’s feet and praise the SEC. They are more like publicist for the SEC and not analyst. When the refs and analyst and commentators all lean toward Alabama, what’s the point in competing? You already know who will be crowned. Oh, the 12-team playoff. How will this help when 6 out of twelve teams will be from the SEC? A 3-loss LSU team will be ranked over an undefeated ACC team.