The decision to leave Florida State out of the College Football Playoff is a canon event for the selection committee. It confirmed speculation that this isn’t about football greatness, but money — and took a torch to the notion that being undefeated and winning a Power 5 conference is enough justification to get a shot at the National Championship.
Mike Greenberg goes off on CFP selection committee ‘football became figure skating’
The man’s not wrong.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
ESPN’s Mike Greenberg was livid on Monday morning, and didn’t mince his words on Get Up when it came to his disdain for leaving out FSU.
Nobody is saying that it was an easy decision to pick between Alabama and Florida State for the final spot, but nothing has felt more wrong since the establishment of the College Football Playoff, which was created by design to bring a more objective process to crowning a National Champion.
It’s decidedly true that FSU played a much softer schedule than the field. It’s without argument that Alabama had a much tougher road in 2023. Still, it’s beyond bizarre to see a team enter the weekend ranked No. 4 by the committee, go undefeated all season long, beat a No. 16 team en route to hoisting the ACC Championship — and still be on the outside looking in because of factors outside their control.
Greenberg is right that the decision reeks of subjectivity, and it didn’t help that Playoff executive director Bill Hancock was already setting the table to throw objectivity to the wind before needing to make the call when he said that “most deserving” isn’t in the committee’s lexicon, but rather they choose the best teams.
In this case that meant leaving out a 13-0 team with a conference championship because their star quarterback was hurt — allowing them to put in a 12-1 Alabama team that just happens to bring in a lot more money. What a coincidence.
It’s going to be a decision debated for a long time. Inherently it seems that the committee’s job should explicitly be deciding who the most deserving teams are to be in the playoff, then let the games settle who is the “best.” Instead the chose to knock down their own No. 4 seed entering the week to make space for a massive rise from Alabama.
Still not sure how that works.
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