It seems like the college football season just started a couple of weeks ago, but teams have completed their 13-game season and the playoffs have been announced. This is the last year of the four team playoff, and the team selection received some backlash.
Florida State University capped their season off with an ACC title and a perfect 13-0 record. Many fans would think this would be enough for a playoff birth, as being a Power 5 school and going undefeated is a hard task, but the college football selection committee thought otherwise. Florida was in the top four rankings for a big chunk of the season, but it was not enough to keep Texas and Alabama from taking the 3rd and 4th seeds. Even with their 12-1 records, the selection committee still believed that they were better teams. This leaves the question: Did they make the right decision?
The short answer is no. To the common fan, this seems like a terrible decision. Florida State should be in the playoffs, as they had a better record throughout the season and it looked like they played better than the other teams. Only a handful of teams go undefeated each year. This year Michigan, Washington, and Liberty also finished with perfect records. To some fans, this could also raise the question of why Liberty is not in the CFP. To that, I respond: Have you ever heard of Liberty before I mentioned them? The answer is probably no, and this gives us a clue as the why FSU was left out of these playoffs.
It comes down to which 4 teams are the best. It does not matter what record teams held in the regular season, it matters how good the team is. The SEC is a very competitive conference, which is why you often see teams like Alabama and Georgia make the playoffs. There are very hard conferences to win, and then there are easy ones with less overall competition. This is the reason why teams like Liberty and FSU are left out of the playoffs even though they finished the season perfectly. Teams like Texas and Alabama finished with one loss, but it comes down to who they lost to, and how close the game was. With all those factors being accounted for, it’s easy to see why Texas and Alabama made the cut instead. These teams may not have been perfect, but even in their losses they still played well and lost to high-ranked teams. They also won their respective conference championships, and those conferences are much more competitive than the conference that FSU plays in.
You also have to remember that college football isn’t only a sport, but it’s also a business. Last year they gave TCU a chance in the playoffs, but they ended up losing 65-7 in the championship game. This was not a pretty score. They want the championship game to be exciting, with the two best teams in the nation competing, and it was clear last year that TCU was not one of the best. Because of this, it cost college football lots of money in lost revenue as people did not want to watch the game. They don’t want this to happen again, and that’s why these lesser-known teams are left out of the playoffs every year even though they played well throughout the whole season.
At the end of the day, I’m happy with how the season turned out, and I can’t wait for a champion to be crowned. Tune into the semifinals on January 1st with Michigan playing Alabama and Washington playing Texas to find out who will make it to the national championship game.
