RADIO
Breaking down the four teams in the 2023 CFP Playoff. Did the committee get it right? Should Florida State have been left out so the SEC could get a team in?
We knew going into Sunday that the committee was going to end up with a horde of ravenous fans upset with them. Honestly, we have had playoff games for each of the last three weeks. That got us here. The loss to Michigan knocked Ohio State out. The loss to Alabama knocked Georgia out. Those fans are already mad and clamoring for inclusion.
I do get the argument of Georgia. A 29-game win streak is impressive, but whenever Georgia lost, it would have knocked them out. Think of this as the "second round" of that expanded playoff that most of you are in favor of. Georgia's loss knocks them out. It's the same principle.
Even though I do still believe that Oregon is one of the better teams, that's more of a testament to how good Washington is. Ask anyone how hard it is to beat a good team twice in the same season. Look at what happened when Oklahoma and Texas met in the Big 12 Championship a few years ago. How about Alabama and LSU playing twice in 2011? The winner of the first game lost the second.
The Debate Between 1 and 2
Washington and Michigan were going to be one and two. We just didn't know which order they would be in. It's splitting hairs at this point.
You know my argument is for Washington to be at the top and it has been for a while. Call it whatever you want, but I won't complain about Washington at two. They dodge Alabama in the semifinal, which is really a win. Texas is the weakest team in this field and everyone outside of Austin, Texas knows it.
Michigan's wins over Penn State and Ohio State are keeping them above water, but I'll argue that two wins over Oregon are MUCH more impressive. Neither team had a particularly strong out-of-conference schedule, but Boise State beat UNLV for the Mountain West title, which is another check for Washington heads-up against Michigan.
Texas and Alabama
Texas has the worst loss of the one-loss teams, but they did beat the team at number four. If the committee wants to say that Texas owns the head-to-head, fine. We can't argue that. What I can argue is that the Big 12 was weaker than the SEC. Both Alabama and Texas needed miracles to finish with just one loss, but I'll say the same thing I've said about Washington all season. They found ways to win.
Which brings us to Alabama at four. I knew the committee would not leave the SEC Champion out. They never have and it's safe to say they never will under any circumstances with the Armageddon known as expansion looming. Does Alabama really deserve the last playoff slot? Many say no.
He's right, you know. Let's take a look at the real issue here, and that is Florida State being left out.
Should Florida State Have Been Left Out?
I know the committee would leave them out with Jordan Travis injured. I don't agree with it, and I'm not the only one.
Robert Griffin III makes some great points. He is also right. The committee tells you to win all your games. The Seminoles did that. They say to win your conference championship. Florida State did that with a third-string true freshman at quarterback. To me, that proves the strength of this team more than anything else does. The committee tells you to schedule a tough out-of-conference game. Florida State did that and won. What reason could they possibly have to leave Florida State out?
This was a hard thing to read. The injury to Travis could have happened in any game this season. Honestly, whenever it happened, it likely would have ended his college career. Travis feeling somehow responsible is heartbreaking. This is what a team does. They lost their leader, but Travis still led from the sidelines. The next men up went out and kept doing the job. They kept winning games.
Who Should Have Been Left Out?
This would be the ultimate way for someone to try and nip this sign-stealing thing before it gets out of hand. The Big Ten wasn't losing their cash cow, so they slapped Michigan on the wrist just in case they beat Ohio State again. They hedged their bets.
The NCAA did as they do with just about everything else: they ostriched it. They stuck their heads in the sand and hoped it would go away. The committee could have taken a stand and did what the Big Ten and the NCAA didn't have the stones to do -- they could have made a statement and really punished Michigan.
For the record, I don't think that is fair to the players. They likely knew it was happening (come on...how could they not?), but it's not like it was their idea. I'm all for not punishing current players for the transgressions of past regimes or their coaching staffs.
There is no easy answer, but a team that beat LSU and finished undefeated in a Power-Five conference shouldn't have been the answer. I truly believe that it was because of the Jordan Travis injury. If that's the case, the committee are cowards. I want all of them to look me in the eye and tell me that they believe Texas is a better team without Jonathon Brooks than Florida State is without Jordan Travis.
We can poke similar holes in Alabama and Texas. Texas's win in Tuscaloosa was huge, but anyone who has watched more than one Alabama game knows that the Tide are a different team now than they were in Week 2. That's not an excuse. That's just the fact.
Texas had a weaker schedule, but they couldn't control that. They also did what the committee said and scheduled a big out-of-conference game. They went to Alabama and beat them. Based on what the committee has shown in the past, that and a conference championship get Texas in, even if they did have the worst loss. It's not like they lost to an unranked team. They lost to a rival on a neutral field and that team is still ranked 12th.
The Al-iphant In The Room
If that is true for Texas, Alabama should have been left out, right? Their loss was to Texas. In my mind, you also can't leave out a conference champion who beat the number one team to take that crown. That's not fair either.
Was it SEC bias that got Alabama in? Many have come right out and said it, while Robert Griffin III took a more diplomatic approach and cited the ACC's 6-4 record against the SEC this year.
The collapse of North Carolina weakened the ACC as a whole. So did the loss of Riley Leonard for Duke. That was a big win at the time for Florida State, who beat Duke with a severely hobbled Leonard. Duke losing four of their last six games turned that from a good win into an average one. Collapses by Miami and Florida didn't help either.
This was an impossible situation that the committee was put in and they did what many thought they would do. They took the easy way out and excluded Florida State because of an injury to their star player. That's not fair either, but this is an inherently unfair system. We were lucky that it never really happened before this.
I understand playoff expansion and why it was needed, but once again, greed got a hold of it and ruined what could have been a good playoff system. I liked the expansion to six or even eight teams if there were no guaranteed bids. 12 is too many. I will die on this hill. How many people really think that this year's playoffs need Missouri, Penn State, Mississippi, and Oklahoma to legitimize it? It's overkill. All that does is provide more chances for players to get hurt...which is why they went to the dumb running clock.
They don't care about the players. They care about the money. How do you make more money? More commercials. How do you get more commercials? More games. Slap a playoff tag on it and the masses will go nuts. People are sheeple like that sometimes.
I know what you're thinking: There are auto-bids under this current system and it was proven this year by Alabama getting over Florida State. The committee's rankings proved that they valued the head-to-head more than the strength of schedule by leaving Texas at three.
For what it's worth, Florida State beat LSU by more than Alabama did, and they played them at a quasi-neutral site. Alabama beat the Tigers in Tuscaloosa. Why didn't that head-to-head matter? I'll tell you why: money. The SEC generates more money than the ACC does.
The Conspiracy Theory
There have been many this year. The first one that really had legs was the referees not calling a blatant pass interference call on Oklahoma State in the end zone in the fourth quarter of Bedlam. The theory was that the Big 12 wanted both Oklahoma and Texas to miss out on the Big 12 Championship because they were leaving for the SEC.
To be fair, while that was a bad call, Oklahoma still had the ball twice more in that game and failed to score. To blame it all on that play is a bit presumptuous. It would have tied the game, then who knows what happens? That theory was destroyed the next week when a terrible spot on fourth down against Houston in the Texas game cost the Cougars a chance to tie it.
Once the Big 12 realized that they couldn't get Texas out because of the Alabama win, they wanted to make sure Oklahoma was left out of a rematch so Texas would play a lower-ranked team and the committee might leave them out. I'm serious. Hundreds of people actually believed this.
The theory about the committee is that they were looking for any reason to leave Florida State out. The Travis injury gave them that. Why would they want the ACC out? One of the ACC athletic directors is the chairman of the committee! Well...that's why.
Florida State was unhappy about the distribution of television funds in the ACC and unhappy that not all schools were putting forth enough effort in football. They rocked the boat and the ACC threw them out of it. I understand that Jim Phillips had to make an angry statement. He's just keeping the optics up. Even though the ACC loses somewhere around six million from the snub, they're good with it. Why?
Because a mad Florida State is going to shake down boosters for that exorbitant ACC buyout and the conference gets far more money. Florida State was going to wait this out and then leave anyway. Their exclusion just expedites the process, so the ACC is good with leaving six million on the table when faced with the prospect of the Seminoles winning the war of attrition, the conference getting no buyout, and FSU leaving anyway.
Do you believe the conspiracy theory? I'll be honest...there are valid points there. The ACC has been mad at the Seminoles since February and has not-so-secretly at times hoped for a loss. They just had the committee do their dirty work. That better explains the snub more than anything else does.
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